“Man Cannot Stand A Meaningless Life” — Carl Jung

Carl Jung – Face to Face [BBC – 1959]:

From brainpickings.org

I found this fascinating. On many levels. This man is awesome. I was actually quite impressed with the interviewer, too. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

I often contemplate the nature of living things in their powerful desire to keep living at all costs insofar as that is the way it should be, as it were.

I think about it because a lot of the time I do not feel that feeling or force or whatever it is. It is troubling. And frequent.

I wish I could talk to this guy.

I no longer think my mind can be sorted, though. Like my eyes, it is far too late.

I may add more to this, we’ll see.

Peace.

Check it out

http://bokku-chan.tumblr.com/post/100656257513/rubyetc-i-found-these-gifs-i-made-a-while-back

Hoping that this post off my tumblr timeline includes the gifs, as they are, pretty much, the post. I think that they are very well thought out and executed.

This bokku-chan fellow is a great artist and pretty hip in my humble opinion. If you’re on tumblr follow along.

Should you be so inclined I have two tumblrs, cool cars (jaded, as you might expect) at misterfibuli, and everything else mrfibulisfortfinds (even more jaded!).

Spending a lot of time thereabouts lately as I am usually at my aunt’s side in this hospice chapter and it is too easy on this moderately-smart phone.

So… onwards…

Peace.
.

On Dreams

Sorry to be absent so long… things are increasingly strange ‘round these parts. Last week my alternate therapist gave me a homework assignment to write a paragraph or two on a topic of my choosing. I thought many thoughts and decided to write a little on thoughts about dreams. Wrote it yesterday while one of the aides was seeing to my lieges needs. She read it today and pronounced it good and to her one line was even deemed “powerful.” Gosh! So I thought I’d share.

Here goes…

Oh dear… a brief one is needed… on what, though? I don’t know. Ah! Dreams…

Last night, or was it this morning, I was thinking about dreams. What are they? Who are the people in them? Most seem to believe that the people in our dreams are those we have seen while awake, even if they are total strangers, because the subconscious records and stashes away literally everything that happens to us. It might be true, that. It might not.

I have heard that dreams are our mind trying to sort things out. I remember reading that Einstein’s Big Idea had come to him in a dream. That phrase “… it came to me in a dream,” is ubiquitous. And for the Aborigines of Australia, well, they have their Dreamtime, a major chunk of their past when things were apparently quite different.

But, as in most things, no one really knows. That’s good in a way, as it makes us think so that we will hopefully be able to sort it out someday.

I only remember my dreams for a few minutes at best. I find that unfortunate, as some of them are pretty good. There have been a few cases where I will remember a few seconds of a dream long term, but it is exceedingly rare. The only one I can think of as I write this involved a person I do know saying something I knew to be true but was in denial about. That certainly reinforces the dreams are about things that concern us camp. That said, there are a lot of camps.

Some dreams seem to have nothing to do with the waking world and are more of an adventure into the unknown. Odd, these dreams.

I like it when I can go back to sleep after my bi-hourly nature wake up, pick up on a dream and continue on with it. I think that that is pretty darn cool and raises even more questions as to just what dreams really are.

I did note that there was a long period wherein I had not dreamt at all, but, upon cessation of smoking cigarettes, I once again could experience dreams. That was a wonderful side effect of quitting. I highly recommend it. Especially if life is not so good… dreams are something to look forward to, even if they remain unremembered.

Years ago, many of them, I think I had at least one or perhaps two of those ‘vivid’ dreams… dreams wherein you know that you’re dreaming and can control what happens in the story line. I would like that to happen again. I would like that very much.

Due to my affinity for things of an inexplicable nature, I am sometimes of the opinion that dreams are a look into other dimensions or alternate universes. I like that idea, find it rather exciting, in fact and find nothing that says it cannot be. There are such places, after all and things like psychedelics can let the mind access them… perhaps in dreams the mind can do it unaided. I note that I never see any “cool stuff,” though, so perhaps there are a multitude of destinations where we can wind up.

I would probably want to stay there.

Ah well… food for thought, things to ponder, eh, what?

Peace.

###

And there you have it.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Massive dose of measles vaccine clears woman’s cancer

Stranger things have happened!

Check this out… (via AboveTopSecret.com)

Massive dose of measles vaccine clears woman’s cancer, page 1.

 

Sample-Return Mission to Enceladus? Make It So!

Space.com – Enceladus vents water into space from its south polar region. The moon is lit by the Sun on the left, and backlit by the vast reflecting surface of its parent planet to the right. Icy crystals from these plumes are likely the source of Saturn’s nebulous E ring, within which Enceladus orbits. Mosaic composite photograph. Cassini, December 25, 2009.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael Benson/Kinetikon Pictures. © All rights reserved.

From Saturn Moon Enceladus Eyed for Sample-Return Mission at Space.com:

SAN FRANCISCO — Scientists are developing a mission concept that would snag icy particles from Saturn’s moon Enceladus and return them to Earth, where they could be analyzed for signs of life.

The spacecraft would fly through the icy plume blasted into space by geysers near Enceladus’ south pole, then send the collected particles back to our planet in a return capsule. Enceladus may be capable of supporting life, and the flyby sample-return mission would bring pieces from its depths to Earth at a reasonable price, researchers said.

“This is really the low-hanging fruit” of sample-return missions, said study leader Peter Tsou of Sample Exploration Systems in La Canada, Calif., who presented the idea here Wednesday (Dec. 5) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. “It would be a shame not to pick it.”

[…]

If the mission is approved, it could probably be ready to launch by 2020, Tsou added. Samples from Enceladus’ plume would make it to Earth about 14 years later.

Enceladus is a great candidate for sample-return, Tsou said. Its geyser-blasted particles are fresh, having come right out of the moon’s subsurface ocean. The mission can be done without landing on and re-launching from another world, two costly and complicating extra steps. And Enceladus seems to have all the ingredients necessary to support life.

“That doesn’t mean life is there,” Tsou said. “But we want to find out.”

Well, dang, doc, I want to find out, too!

I mean, just think… !

Enceladus is an awesome place. Seriously, I have always had a gut feeling that there are critters there.

Too bad it will be so far off, man, seven long years… but

It would be awesome if a base could be established, robotic, no doubt, that would bore through the ice to the ocean below… and have streaming video. Should be able to sort out the streaming part by then, eh?

There’s a strange old post here from October ‘09 called The Critters Of Enceladus,

Ha! That was a fun one.

Here’s a pic…

Resident of Enceladus? image N00121336(crop) NASA/JPL

Yes, indeed, Enceladus is a fine place to get real and tangible material to study.

Peace.

P.S. This was a draft from way back in January… sigh.

 

Bigfoot’s DNA: Now We Know.

Miss Patty, stabilized.

Well now… this is certainly interesting!

I found out somewhat inadvertently by checking my twitter feed, which is something I hardly ever do as, being an old hippy I simply can’t keep up with it

So I scrolled down a bit and there was a tweet from Craig Woolheater of Cryptomundo with the title shown below as the text with a link. There I found what appears below…

Wondering if this study is a part of the one that I meant to post about way back when when it was announced which I learned of through SLAYER69’s thread at ATS called Project to examine ‘Yeti’ DNA launched. I don’t think so as it was “A new collaboration between Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology will use the latest genetic techniques to investigate organic remains that some have claimed belong to the ‘Yeti’ and other ‘lost’ hominid species.” But, hey, you never know.

As for this Facebook press release, it’s a very exciting result. I must say and not at all what I expected.

Enjoy…

Sasquatch DNA Study Announcement
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on November 23rd, 2012

Igor Burtsev made the following announcement on his facebook page today:

Urgent!

The DNA analysis of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch specimen conducted by Dr. Melba Ketchum the head of DNA Diagnostics, Timpson, TX, USA has been over!

Team of American scientists led by Dr. Melba Ketchum for five years has analyzed 109 purported samples of such creatures. The study has sequenced DNA of a novel North American hominin, commonly called Bigfoot or Sasquatch.

There were a large number of laboratories associated with this study including academic, private and government laboratories in which blind testing was utilized to avoid prejudice in testing. Great time and care was taken in the forensic laboratories to assure no contamination occurred with any of the samples utilized in this study.

After 5 years of this study the scientists can finally answer the question of what Bigfoot/Sasquatch really is. It is human like us only different, a hybrid of a human with unknown species. Early field research shows that the Bigfoot/Sasquatches are massively intelligent which has enabled them to avoid detection to a large extent. They are different than us, however human nonetheless.

The hybridization event could not have occurred more than 15,000 years ago according to the mitochondrial data in some samples. Origin of this Hominin was probably Middle Eastern/Eastern Europe and Europe originally though other geographic areas are not excluded. The manuscript associated with this study has been submitted to a scientific reviewed magazine.

For many years, people have refused to believe they exist. Now that we know that they are real, it is up to us to protect them from those that would hunt or try to capture them for research or for sport. They should be left alone to live as they live now. After all, they are our relatives.

At this time, analysis of the Sasquatch genomes is still ongoing. Further data will be presented in the future following this original study. Additionally, analysis of various hair samples purportedly from Siberian Wildman are being tested in an effort to determine if relatedness exists between the Sasquatch and Russian Wildman.

~ Dr. Igor Burtsev,
Head of International Center of Hominology,
Moscow, Russia +7(916)812-6253
inhomin@yandex.ru

My assistant in the USA, Megan Wheeler: sasquatchdna@gmail.com

Peace.

Edit to Add: Interesting discussion of this topic started 11/24 on ATS by Caver78: ‘BIGFOOT’ DNA SEQUENCED IN UPCOMING GENETICS STUDY. Pretty sure the mods will make the OP get rid of the all-caps. The title (in accordance with ATS rules, (except for the caps)) is from the article ‘Bigfoot’ DNA Sequenced In Upcoming Genetics Study on Yahoo! News.

Birds hold ‘funerals’ for their dead friends!

Yep, it is true, my friends…

I am not really all that surprised, actually.

The following is excerpted from an article on the BBC website…

Birds hold ‘funerals’ for dead

By Matt Walker

[…] The revelation comes from a study by Teresa Iglesias and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, US.

They conducted experiments, placing a series of objects into residential back yards and observing how western scrub jays in the area reacted.

The objects included different coloured pieces of wood, dead jays, as well as mounted, stuffed jays and great horned owls, simulating the presence of live jays and predators.

Alarming reaction

The jays reacted indifferently to the wooden objects.

But when they spied a dead bird, they started making alarm calls, warning others long distances away.

The jays then gathered around the dead body, forming large cacophonous aggregations. The calls they made, known as “zeeps”, “scolds” and “zeep-scolds”, encouraged new jays to attend to the dead.

The jays also stopped foraging for food, a change in behaviour that lasted for over a day.

[…]

(the article closes with these lines…)

Other animals are known to take notice of their dead.

Giraffes and elephants, for example, have been recorded loitering around the body of a recently deceased close relative, raising the idea that animals have a mental concept of death, and may even mourn those that have passed.

Birds have clearly shown themselves to be of very high intelligence. They use tools efectively and are able to solve complex conceptual problems with ease. I am of the opinion that all animals and plants are to one degree or another sentient and conscious and are possessed of emotion, also to one degree or another. Just like us. Anyone who has spent time with animals surely must be well aware of this.

What really struck me from the study was that the jays stopped eating for over a day. That is significant. I will repeat it, in bold, even – the jays stopped eating for over a day. Capiche? That is clearly mourning. Got to be.

A lot of people think of animals as just mindless eating machines that do little else. That assumption is just so very wrong. Have they no eyes, no senses, no thought processes or logic? Such a reality makes me have some rather sad feelings regarding my own species. It does! I do not understand it.

It does bother me that scientists are only now starting to ‘get with the program,’ as it were. Sigh. Well, at least they’re starting. A good thing, surely.

To nicely illustrate the point, I’ll present to you now a reply from the ATS thread on this matter, member phroziac posted this very poignant tale:

Ever had a conversation with a bird? Theyre extremely intelligent, and i have no doubt whatsoever they have emotions… and non speaking species are just as intelligent as speaking ones. Small birds are just physically incapable of speaking because of the size of their uhmn…voice box. Ive caught mocking birds attempting to speak though, lol…..

However, its a similar intelligence to a young child. Not an adult human. Do children understand death? not really.

I owned a male and female cockatiel. The female got sick and died with basically no warning at all….very common for birds…they hide that theyre sick. The male cuddled up with her before she died and stayed cuddled up with her for hours after she died.  he got really depressed and quiet and eventually we had to give him away to a friend that had cockatiels to try to help.

He would always whistle the andy griffith song when he was happy lmao….i never heard him do it again after his lady died……

So, birds do have an emotional response to other birds dying. But im not sure they understand death.

And there you go… Reality. Poor bird.

Also available should you desire it is the research paper that was used as BBC“s source, published at Science Direct and titled Western scrub-jay funerals: cacophonous aggregations in response to dead conspecifics. As with most science journals, you can read the abstract, but you have to buy the paper (for $31.50) to read the actual research. Here’s the start of the abstract:

All organisms must contend with the risk of injury or death; many animals reduce this danger by assessing environmental cues to avoid areas of elevated risk. However, little is known about how organisms respond to one of the most salient visual cues of risk: a dead conspecific. Here we show that the sight of a dead conspecific is sufficient to induce alarm calling and subsequent risk-reducing behavioural modification in western scrub-jays, Aphelocoma californica, and is similar to the response to a predator (a great horned owl,Bubo virginianus, model). Discovery of a dead conspecific elicits vocalizations that are effective at attracting conspecifics, which then also vocalize, thereby resulting in a cacophonous aggregation. Presentations of prostrate dead conspecifics and predator mounts elicited aggregations and hundreds of long-range communication vocalizations, while novel objects did not. In contrast to presentations of prostrate dead conspecifics, presentations of a jay skin mounted in an upright, life-like pose elicited aggressive responses, suggesting the mounted scrub-jay was perceived to be alive and the prostrate jay was not. There was a decrease of foraging in the area during presentations of prostrate dead conspecifics and predator mounts, which was still detectable 24 h later. Foraging returned to baseline levels 48 h after presentations. Novel objects and mounted jays did not affect foraging. Our results show that without witnessing the struggle and manner of death, the sight of a dead conspecific is used as public information and that this information is actively shared with conspecifics and used to reduce exposure to risk.

Peace.

Ice Age Flower, 32,000 Years Old … It’s Alive, It Blooms!

Ice Age Flower Blooms after 32000 Years – photo by anemoneprojectors (Peter O)

Gosh and Wow!

Beautiful, isn’t it?

From American Live Wire, via, as usual, an ATS thread, we read…

Ice Age Flower Blooms after 32000 Years

Nature is a wondrous beauty as the ice age flower blooms after 32000 years of being non-existent.

According to Discover Magazine, Russian scientists announced that they had unearthed the fruit and brought tissue from it back to life. after the seeds were buried over 32000 years ago. The discovery was made in northwestern Siberia, where the winter team of Russian scientists found the seeds of the flower and regrew it. The plant breaks the previously held record of the oldest tissue to give life to healthy plants, which was previously held by the Israeli date palm seed.

In 1995, researchers studying and working with ancient soil composition in an exposed Siberian riverbank found 70 fossilized Ice Age squirrel burrows, some of which stored up to 800,000 seeds and fruits. With the help of the permafrost, the narrow-leafed campion plant tissue was preserved well enough for the team at the Russian Academy of Sciences to culture the cells to see if they would grow. The team, led by team leader Svetlana Yashina, were successful and re-created Siberian conditions in the lab and watched as the refrigerated tissue sprouted buds that developed into 36 flowering plants within weeks.

Wow, I say again. Finally something credible from out of Russia – and it’s pretty darn exciting.

OLD DNA A plant has been generated from the fruit of the narrow-leafed campion. It is the oldest plant by far to be grown from ancient tissue.

I am impressed by the seemingly short recovery and growing time, although do note that I am lacking in horticultural knowledge and skills. It makes you wonder what it was like back then, probably verdant and lush like we can only imagine. Then again they had #loads of really big bugs back then, so probably scary at times, maybe all the time, but you’d go in a heartbeat in a time machine, wouldn’t you?

Hell Yeah!

From the New York Times (nice article):

Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived

By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: February 20, 2012

Living plants have been generated from the fruit of a little arctic flower, the narrow-leafed campion, that died 32,000 years ago, a team of Russian scientists reports. The fruit was stored by an arctic ground squirrel in its burrow on the tundra of northeastern Siberia and lay permanently frozen until excavated by scientists a few years ago.

This would be the oldest plant by far that has ever been grown from ancient tissue. The present record is held by a date palm grown from a seed some 2,000 years old that was recovered from the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel.

Seeds and certain cells can last a long term under the right conditions, but many claims of extreme longevity have failed on closer examination, and biologists are likely to greet this claim, too, with reserve until it can be independently confirmed. Tales of wheat grown from seeds in the tombs of the pharaohs have long been discredited. Lupines were germinated from seeds in a 10,000-year-old lemming burrow found by a gold miner in the Yukon. But the seeds, later dated by the radiocarbon method, turned out to be modern contaminants.

[…]

What happened in Arctic regions so long ago? It has always been a fascination. Discoveries like this living yet dormant seed and the undigested meals in the stomachs of perfectly preserved mammoths among so many others… whatever it was, it was instantaneous… and that intrigues me no end. What on earth could do such a thing?

Permafrost… holder of mysteries, countless mysteries. Imagine what else could be found within it. Should dig it all up and find out!

Enjoy…

Peace.

Strange New Primordial Organism Is Not In Any Known Kingdom Of Life!

Glimpse into primordial times: Genetic analyses of a micro-organism that lives in the sludge of a lake in Ås, 30 km south of Oslo i Norway, are providing researchers with an insight into what the first life on Earth looked like. (Caption Credit: ScienceDaily) (Image Credit: UiO/MERG)

Meet Collodictyon, our oldest known ancestor.

And by ‘our’ I don’t mean just our oldest known ancestor, I mean everything remotely like us’ oldest known ancestor.

Pretty cool, pretty darn cool… and to my eye – it is a cryptozoological masterpiece, even though cryptozoologists were not involved in this tale. None that I know of, at least. Surprising where kindred souls pop up.

An entirely new organism has been found in a Norwegian lake; and gol dang it, man, it is neither plant, animal, fungi, algae or protist! Wa Hey!

Source 1 (PopSci) : New Primordial Protozoan Species Is Not in Any Known Kingdom of Life

“We have found an unknown branch of the tree of life that lives in this lake. It is unique! So far we know of no other group of organisms that descend from closer to the roots of the tree of life than this species,” study researcher Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi, of the University of Oslo, in Norway, said in a statement.

A tiny microorganism found in Norwegian lake sludge may be related to the very oldest life forms on this planet, a possible modern cousin of our earliest common ancestor. It is not a fungus, alga, parasite, plant or animal, yet it has features associated with other kingdoms of life. It could be a founding member of the newest kingdom on the tree of life, scientists said.

Life on Earth is divided into two main groups, the prokaryotes and the eukaryotes. Prokaryotes are simple life forms, with no membranes or cell nuclei; this group includes bacteria and archaea. Eukaryotes, which include humans, animals, plants, fungi and algae, have cell membranes and nuclei. This new organism is a eukaryote.

Source for Source 1 (lots of details!): Science Daily: Rare Protozoan from Sludge in Norwegian Lake Does Not Fit On Main Branches of Tree of Life

This organism has several characteristics that set it apart from every other (currently) known kingdom:

Source 2 (MSNBC): Strange organism has unique roots in the tree of life

“The microorganism is among the oldest currently living eukaryote organisms we know of. It evolved around one billion years ago, plus or minus a few hundred million years. It gives us a better understanding of what early life on Earth looked like,” Shalchian-Tabrizi said.

What it looked like was small. The organism the researchers found is about 30 to 50 micrometers (about the width of a human hair) long. It eats algae and doesn’t like to live in groups. It is also unique because instead of one or two flagella (cellular tails that help organisms move) it has four.

It would appear that this little guy shares attributes of critters that belong within two other kingdoms, but is nonetheless considered by scientists to be sufficiently different from either of them that they have felt compelled to give it it’s own classification:

Because it has features of two separate kingdoms of life, the researchers think that the ancestors of this group might be the organisms that gave rise to these other kingdoms, the amoeba and the protist, as well. If that’s true, they would be some of the oldest eukaryotes, giving rise to all other eukaryotes, including humans.

I find all this most fascinating…

Other related articles:

• Discovery: OLDEST HUMAN ANCESTOR FOUND IN LAKE SLUDGE
• Wired: Mankind’s most distant relative lives at the bottom of a lake in Norway
• Above Top Secret: New Primordial Protozoan Species Is Not in Any Known Kingdom of Life 
• Above Top Secret: Strange organism has unique roots in the tree of life

Enjoy.

Peace.

Good Thing They’re Small!

Uploaded by sonefe67 on Apr 30, 2007

Pistol shrimp blowing a blast of water a speed of 100km/h with temp 4700C.

Now this is cool. Nature always delivers the most fascinating designs. A gun built into your arm, with an endless supply of bullets…

From this creature’s Wikipedia page:
(Sorry about using Wiki as they are such a tool of the wrong people, but I’m lazy today and for this sort of thing they’re truthful…)

I find the first paragraph pretty darn interesting…

Pistol shrimp have also been noted for their ability to reverse claws. When the snapping claw is lost the missing limb will regenerate into a smaller claw and the original smaller appendage will grow into a new snapping claw. Laboratory research has shown that severing the nerve of the snapping claw induces the conversion of the smaller limb into a second snapping claw. This phenomenon of claw symmetry in snapping shrimp has only been documented once in nature.^[10]

Snapping effect

The snapping shrimp competes with much larger animals like the Sperm Whale and Beluga Whale for the title of ‘loudest animal in the sea.’ The animal snaps a specialized claw shut to create a cavitation bubble that generates acoustic pressures of up to 80 kPa at a distance of 4 cm from the claw. As it extends out from the claw, the bubble reaches speeds of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) and releases a sound reaching 218 decibels.^[11] The pressure is strong enough to kill small fish.^[12] It corresponds to a zero to peak pressure level of 218 decibels relative to one micropascal (dB re 1 μPa), equivalent to a zero to peak source level of 190 dB re 1 μPa at the standard reference distance of 1 m. Au and Banks measured peak to peak source levels between 185 and 190 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m, depending on the size of the claw.^[13] Similar values are reported by Ferguson and Cleary.^[14] The duration of the click is less than 1 millisecond.

The snap can also produce sonoluminescence from the collapsing cavitation bubble. As it collapses, the cavitation bubble reaches temperatures of over 5,000 K (4,700 °C).^[15] In comparison, the surface temperature of the sun is estimated to be around 5,800 K (5,500 °C). The light is of lower intensity than the light produced by typical sonoluminescence and is not visible to the naked eye. It is most likely a by-product of the shock wave with no biological significance. However, it was the first known instance of an animal producing light by this effect. It has subsequently been discovered that another group of crustaceans, the mantis shrimp, contains species whose club-like forelimbs can strike so quickly and with such force as to induce sonoluminescent cavitation bubbles upon impact.^[16]

The snapping is used for hunting (hence the alternative name “pistol shrimp”), as well as for communication.

Jebus! What will Mother come up with next? Ha! Okay, how about this guy…?

Uploaded by wildvisuals on Dec 27, 2006

Animal Olympians: Featherweight boxing. A maritime creature that is 4 inches long and more powerful than a point 22 calibre pistol. Big things certainly do come in small packages!

Good gracious!

From this creature’s Wikipedia page:

Mantis shrimp or stomatopods are marine crustaceans, the members of the order Stomatopoda. They are neither shrimp nor mantids, but receive their name purely from the physical resemblance to both the terrestrial praying mantis and the shrimp. They may reach 30 centimetres (12 in) in length, although exceptional cases of up to 38 cm (15 in) have been recorded.^[2] The carapace of mantis shrimp covers only the rear part of the head and the first four segments of the thorax. Mantis shrimp appear in a variety of colours, from shades of browns to bright neon colours. Although they are common animals and among the most important predators in many shallow, tropical and sub-tropical marine habitats they are poorly understood as many species spend most of their life tucked away in burrows and holes.^[3]

Called “sea locusts” by ancient Assyrians, “prawn killers” in Australia and now sometimes referred to as “thumb splitters” — because of the animal’s ability to inflict painful gashes if handled incautiously^[4] — mantis shrimp sport powerful claws that they use to attack and kill prey by spearing, stunning or dismemberment. Although it happens rarely, some larger species of mantis shrimp are capable of breaking through aquarium glass with a single strike from this weapon.^[5]

Did you catch that last sentence? Yikes!

I am impressed by this next video… burrow too confining? No worries, mate, I’ll fix it!

Uploaded by TheNymans on Aug 27, 2010

at about 23 seconds, manty makes more room for him/herself
rip manty

The ocean fascinates me endlessly because it is just as exciting as space, maybe even more so, as it is nearly totally (98%) unexplored and it is right here! It is said we know more about the moon than our oceans. This is quite true.

Just think what would discover if the monies used for war were used to explore the wonderful planet we live on.

Peace.

Dr. Newport’s effective work on memory loss and Alzheimer’s with coconut oil.

I find this fascinating. I am one of those who think that there are remedies for most of what ails us out there in nature and that most of what ails us is of our own doing. Fake, processed foods, GE and GMO monstrosities… all of that, just the processing kills the goodness even without GMOs involved.

Most of the species of foods that our parents and grandparents ate are extinct at our own, on-purpose hand, tomatoes, potatoes, stuff like that. Food grown now has only about 20% of the nutrition in it than the foods we ate even as recently as my younger years did. Kids today have no idea what a tomato or apple is supposed to taste like. Seriously.

There may be a connection to aluminum in dementia as well, so avoid it.

I am also one of those who feel strongly that greed and profit affects medical research much more than helping people does. Cures are low on the list, the treatment of symptoms is high upon it. How often is the phrase “You’ll have to take this for the rest of your life” doled out? A lot. Sometimes its for real, but very often not so much. The importance of diet and exercise that can reverse many conditions is not mentioned as that would reduce profits. I used to take Lipitor and some other stuff. They gave me that line mentioned above. No need anymore. My aunt’s pills garner Big Pharma well over $1,000 a month. Multiply that by all the dementia sufferers.

And that is just one condition we suffer from. Treat the symptoms… don’t fix it. I find it loathsome.

The video in this thread features Ken Lightburn, the president of Nature’s Approved, a health supplement producer, doing an interview with Dr. Mary Newport, a medical doctor and her husband Steve, who is, apparently, now suffering a lot less. I decided I should post this as regulars will know that I am quite sensitive to the dementia subject since I am the full time caregiver to my 89 year old aunt who is at an advanced stage of this exceptionally frightening condition. Figured as well, since hardly anyone ever clicks on anything around here, to post all 6 parts for your convenience.

As soon as I get some loot I will be buying some coconut oil, regardless of her advanced stage, just because. I will also be getting some for my consumption.

Part 1

Uploaded by theonlyfredsmith on Oct 11, 2009

Visit http://www.OrganicCoconutOil.info for more on the use of coconut oil.

1. Dr Newport learns that the medium chain triglycerides in coconut oil may help her husband Steve, who suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s.

Part 2

2. Dr. Newport discusses ketone bodies, an alternative fuel for the brain that the body makes in digesting coconut oil.

Part 3

3. Dr. Richard Veech of the NIH makes a ketone ester that can help with neurological diseases including Alzheimers.

Part 4

4. Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE) and the clock test. Steve Newports symptoms of Alzheimers disease improve rapidly after eating coconut oil.

Part 5

5. Dr. Veech’s ketone project needs funding to produce the ketone ester, which may help millions with memory loss, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Lou Gerhig’s (ALS), Multiple Sclerosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy and poor memories.

Part 6

6. Dr. Theodore VanItalie of Harvard and Columbia University: “My view of the ketone ester story is that – if the results in human subjects bear out the findings in laboratory animals – they could well be the major advance in nutrition in the 21st century.”

Dr. Newport’s website is Coconut Oil and Ketones.

Discussion at AboveTopSecret.

Check back for possible updates.

Peace.

One Big Cricket!

Rather large, this cricket, eh? … Or, this weta, to be precise.

This thing weighs more than a sparrow, three times more than a mouse… and eats carrots, whole ones I bet.

While not exactly cryptozoology as wetas are already well known, it was not, it seems, known that they get this big.

This story has been all over the net and I am willing to bet that you have seen this story in the last few days. Sorry if you have, this is for those who have not clapped eyes on this ginormous bugger. I saw it a couple of days ago and naturally am just getting a round tuit here.

I do dig large critters of any stripe, (my good friend Willy will surely attest to my twisted fear of stepping out of my time machine (Oh, Jeez, I wasn’t supposed to mention that thing) only to come face to face with a 9-foot eurypterid… (they had those back then, you know)… frikken shivers, man…) crickets included, so here we go…

From the Daily Mail:

A nature-lover has revealed how he spent two days tracking down a giant insect on a remote New Zealand island – and got it to eat a carrot out of his hand.

Mark Moffett’s find is the world’s biggest insect in terms of weight, which at 71g is heavier than a sparrow and three times that of a mouse.

The 53-year-old former park ranger discovered the giant weta up a tree and his real life Bug’s Bunny has now been declared the largest ever found.

He came across the cricket-like creature, which has a wing span of seven inches, after two days of searching on a tiny island.

The creepy crawly is only found on Little Barrier Island, in New Zealand, although there are 70 other types of smaller weta found throughout the country.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2068547/Weta-insect-Heaviest-world-weighs-3-times-mouse.html#ixzz1fbl7A9ak

Just look at this thing! Fantastic!

You can learn even more about this fella by reading this discussion thread. I wonder if it is omnivorous… yeesh… nah, couldn’t be…

Peace.

Okay, I could not resist adding this… from the inimitable davespanners…

This is bad news for snowmen everywhere

:)

Empathy.

Just a quick one… (although I do need to write a long one to fill up the space at the bottom)

I thought this was rather fascinating. Animals are so much more substantial than your average person gives them credit for.

As you will see below, even the much-derided rat seems to have a high level of development. Fully equal to our own. And… as our source Leah notes below, the results of this study lead to some very interesting and definitely disappointing thoughts regarding our own pitiful human condition.

Don’t they, now.

My, my, my…

 

In 1959, psychologist Russell Church conducted a study on the empathy of rats.

In the study, he trained the rats to push a lever to receive their food. Then, in a twisted change, he fixed the lever to a a floor in the neighboring cage. Every time the rat would push the lever, the rat in the other cage would get an electric shock. Rats that had previously experienced shocks were very empathetic to the rat in the other cage.

Instead of selfishly pushing the lever and receiving its food at the expense of the other rat, the rat would quit pushing the lever and eventually starve to death rather than eat off of another rat’s suffering.

I sometimes am left with the distinct feeling that other species make more moral decisions than humanity.

Source: google.com

by: Leah Steece

 

via Ozzy bin Oswald.

Peace.

The Fastest Living Thing on the Planet!

I must say I was surprised… and I think you will be, too! Very cool.

Seriously, I simply would never have guessed.

You will no doubt agree that that was incredible!

Now, just imagine the technologies that we can achieve by studying and implementing this!

Hadda share… peace.

Architecture of the Superorganism: “Ants! Nature’s Secret Power”

 

Uploaded by KYLYKaHYT on Dec 24, 2010

From: Ants! Natures Secret Power

A giant ant colony is pumped full of concrete, then excavated to reveal the complexity of its inner structure.

Be amazed as was I at the complexity of the design of this city under the ground. The architecture is a study in perfection, in efficiency, in purpose, in all that is right and good. Oh, the wonders of nature! Millions of ants, all acting ‘as one,’ in a collective hive-mind, move literally tons of dirt and create for themselves a city, a city that has literally all they need to live. It reminds me, in a way, of the old designs for self-sufficient space platforms proposed for people in the path to colonize space.

I’m glad I caught this. Quite a refreshing change of pace from the usual horrors that fill my news line.

It is said that humans couldn’t do this. I disagree. But at the same time I’m not in favor of hive-mind behavior, at least in our species. For insects, sure. It’s all well and good to all work together to achieve something so great, however, grateful I am for the individual genius of the human mind.

For your further enjoyment, here is the full length film…

Uploaded by KYLYKaHYT on Dec 24, 2010

In this documentary we will be transported into the world of ants through the eyes of Bert Hölldobler, a world authority on these amazing animals.

What animal has achieved immortality? What animal is the most warlike? What animal has the greatest supercity on the planet? Not man but ants. They are the real success story. It is only their tiny size and our vanity that allows us to hold onto the myth of our supremacy. Ants rule the planet. They are found in more habitats from far northern Finland to the sweltering tropics.
The largest colony known of these insects is in Japan, where 306 million ants, with 1 million queens, in 45,000 colonies spread over 270 hectares.
The fiercest warriors on earth are the slave maker ants. Other ants have barracks and sentry posts to protect themselves against surprise attack.

Bert Hölldobler, friend of world renowned scientist Edward Wilson, is a world authority on these amazing animals. He has dedicated his life, traveling around the world, to understand them. Through his eyes and his words we will be transported into the world of the ants. A world more wonderful and bizarre than any science fiction. “Ants” will reveal this alien world for the first time, in the company of a true authority and enthusiast.

Winner of: International Wildlife Film Festival Missoula (USA): “Best TV-Program” and “Best Educational Value” & NaturVision 2005: Best International Contribution / Best Camera

For those even further involved in learning more, there is a discussion going on, with a few points of light scattered about…

Here’s an interesting, informative post from the thread at ATS called Awe Inspiring Giant Ant Hill Excavated.

shado101 posted on 4/25/2011 @ 09:4

I actually breed and collect different ant colonies, sounds slightly odd but we all have the odd hobby and interest here and there.
I would just like to point out that the type of ant in this video is fairly notorious for having some of the most complex ant nests. This is largely in part due to this species diet, which is the fungus cultivated using mushed up leaves and other organic matter (on the most part vegetation of some sort). The fungus, some strains of which is only found in ant nests, requires the utmost regulation. The temperature, humidity and ventilation needs to be just right.

Most other ant species create nests way below the complexity of the ones shown in the video. Don’t get me wrong they still show an astounding understanding of their environment.

An anecdote from my own ant breeding is when I moved the tank of one of my ant colonies on the window sill of my room. The sun would now hit the side of the tank facing the window. It was then I noticed that the ants were busy excavating new tunnels, and it was one week later that I saw a new chamber on the side of the tank facing the window. The ants had moved all their larvae and eggs into this chamber, my understanding is that heat speeds up the development of their larvae. To me this showed that ants have an incredible understanding of their environment, and will constantly adjust themselves to maximize their utility.

Peace.

Critter! Yes, A Critter – Captured On Video – Nice!

ShadoXAV | January 04, 2011

Caught this UFO while taping time lapse footage of clouds. The clouds were clearing as the sun went down. That is when the UFO was caught streaking across the sky. I thought it might be a high flying jet until it made its two sharp 90 degree turns. I have seen jets make high speed turns at high altitudes but they can’t turn this sharp at high altitudes. I don’t know what it is. If anyone knows what it is please post your comment.

Category: Science & Technology

Uploader Comments (ShadoXAV)

• Thanks to all that have view this video and left a comment. Please remember that this is a time lapse video and the actual time it took for this object to travel and make the turns is 1 minute 28 seconds. Also the camera is locked down and focus is set to infinity. The sun has gone down and the camera is sitting in the dark. The object is being illuminated by the sun so it is higher then the lower clouds that are dark. The object is not a bug.
• @theyreoutthere Holliday TX is a few miles South West of Wichita Falls TX. Wichita Falls is 100 or so miles North West of DFW. As far as I can tell from the video, this object passed somewhere between Holliday and DFW but at a high altitude. It was traveling in a North East direction.

Nice catch! Very nice. A refreshing change from the plethora of ludicrous dots in the night sky and the obvious airplane videos that infest and degrade YouTube into near untenability. Here we have a camera set on a proper platform, operating in time lapse and aimed at the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Excellent.

Truth be told, I am also particularly interested in that odd thin dagger like cloud that the object goes near. WTF?

Be that interest as it may, and getting back to the UFO, as the poster says, this is time lapse, and as such, we should only be looking at the latter parts of the vid where it is slowed down to “as it was shot” speed. I should not have to explain why.

Note that the object appears to change shape between frames, sometimes ‘normal,’ sometimes longer, sometimes foreshortened. UFOs have often displayed this characteristic in films past. View it large and note that there is a fluidity of sorts to the motion and although the turns are indeed fabulously tight, they are not exactly 90° in a geekularly mechanical, engineering sense of the term.

Also note the conditions listed above and, further noting the exceptional altitude, realize that this thing is of a pretty substantial size. And yet it exhibits that fluidity that I mentioned.

For these reasons, my opinion of this object is that it is yet another example of a plasma critter. A very nice example. It is a living creature. One that lives in the atmosphere, (its ocean, as it were), at levels even reaching a touch into space.

There’ve never been too many folks looking into these lifeforms, notably Trevor James Constable and Wilhelm Reich in the 50’s, but thankfully there are still a few. For more in depth reportage, look into zorgon’s work on the subject at AboveTopSecret.com. zorgon (Ron Schmidt) is also the top authority on the US Navy Space Command.

Enjoy. Peace.

Dinochelus ausubeli, A Wicked-Clawed Deep Sea Nasty.

Author: Shapiro, Leo

Compiler: Hammock, Jen

Supplier: EOL Rapid Response Team

License: Some rights reserved

Source URL: View original data object

Indexed: October 01, 2010 Permalink

Dinochelus ausubeli is a new species of deepwater lobster (family Nephropidae) first collected in 2007 from the Philippine Sea off the island of Luzon and was formally described in 2010. The species is so distinct that it was not only described as a new species but placed in a newly erected genus as well (Dinochelus). “Dinochelus” is derived from the Greek dinos, meaning “terrible”, and chela, meaning “claw”, an allusion to the massive, spinose major claw. The specific epithet ausubeli honors Jesse Ausubel, an enthusiastic sponsor of the Census of Marine Life, a major effort to document marine life in the first decade of the 21st century. (Ahyong et al. 2010)

Wow, man, that’s one hell of a claw! I’m diggin’ it. It reminds one of a precision instrument that some technician might wield for maximum tweakage of something obscure and specialized.

And it is obviously extremely specialized. I would imagine it is designed to do one thing really well, whether that’s getting into a seriously narrow nook or similarly configured cranny wherein its main nutrient-filled nodule resides, or, perhaps it somehow conforms to said nutrient-filled nodule’s unique physiognomy.

Shivers, I surely wouldn’t want to be that unfortunate creature!

For additional perusal and introspection into the vastness of life’s catalog:

At AboveTopSecret: Newly Discovered Deep Sea Lobster *pic*

At ScienceDaily (source for the ATS discussion thread): Newly Discovered Deep Sea Lobster

At Encyclopedia of Life (source of the extract above): Dinochelus ausubeli

At WoRMS – World Register of Marine Species: WoRMS Image

Whenever I look at new creatures from the sea I am always, always reminded of the fact that we know more about the Moon and Mars than our own oceans. A LOT more. A situation I find very saddening. Indeed, don’t spend our resources on learning what’s out there… spend them on global acts of corporate criminality and on killing each other in support of the same. Great.

Every time a probe or submersible or anything goes down below, at least one lifeform is seen for the first time. Less than 5% of the world’s oceans have had any sort of exploration.

Interestingly, when humans briefly visited the deepest deepness that there is on this planet, the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the fabulous Trieste… right there on the bottom scurrying away… was a fish.

Absolutely amazing.

“He’s Got The Cutest Little Feet!”

Now then!

Here’s yet another amazing image.

What this actually is caught me by surprise when I read the description below. Always pictured an adhesive pad as, well, an adhesive pad. I would never have imagined that at least this species of beetle is perched on a large array of extremely tiny feet. Wicked! The things we learn…

So, do these tiny little feet move individually and “walk” along together in an orchestrated way, or do they just adhere to the surface and then the beetle picks up the whole group at once as it walks? I want to know. I do!

8th Place: Beetle leg

German researcher Jan Michels’ eighth-place image shows a lateral view of the adhesive pad on the leg of a beetle (Clytus sp.). The view was captured using autofluorescence.

This post’s title, by the way, refers to a line from one of those humorous radio ads for something that I can’t recall (shoes, maybe?) that played in the New York City market a few years ago. For some reason it came to mind and I thought it somehow fit in describing this extraordinary image. And yes, I know my mind is strange.

As this post is obviously a complement to the preceding post featuring the fabulous face of a weevil (and the microscopic minerals post with the added dragonfly face that has a very strange additional “face” on it), the photo is also from the very same Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition and you can see many more at this link. And there is that same discussion of the imagery as well.

This stuff rocks.

Well, Hi There!

I love this guy.

Seriously.

What a strange and lovely face.

Damned if he doesn’t just make this web page pop!

I was going to post this picture without comment, but doing that didn’t work too well last time I did it, really, although it gets downloaded a lot… when I had commented, though, the post seemed to do better… not enough to become a thread, but hey.

The info on this extraordinary image is just below. You can see many more at this link. Maybe you’d like to read or even join a discussion of the image and others.

The world we live in is fabulous, isn’t it?

10th Place: Weevil head.

The Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition honors the world’s most extraordinary microscope images of life science subjects. This 10th-place picture, by British photographer Laurie Knight, shows the face of a weevil (possibly Curculio nucum or Curculio glandium). The image was captured using a lighting technique known as episcopic illumination.

You may also like the follow up post to this one, called “He’s Got The Cutest Little Feet!”.