Your unusual dish of everything.
The intriguing and the fascinating.
Understanding Evil
Feb 24th
I’ve found an interesting article the other day and thought that I should share, because as always, ‘sharing is caring’ people. 
Dr. Evil
It is a much mentioned, but little understood concept. Any individual in the world is likely to have strong conceptions of “evil,” but very few could define it, or ascribe a cause to it. Dictionary.com defines “evil” as “morally bad or wrong,” and also “causing ruin, injury or pain.” While the word “immoral” is more commonly used to connote the first definition (“morally bad or wrong”), colloquially, the word “evil” is most often used to convey the sense of the second definition (“causing ruin, injury or pain”). Realizing that the phrase “evil” is subjective and has many implications, in this essay I will use the word “evil” to convey the sense of the second definition.
From time immemorial, some humans have been perceived to have the tendency to cause harm to others for no apparent or rational reason. These humans, we assume, like to take pleasure in the pain of others. Thus, what appears to be an alien sensibility to us, one which is characterized by an inexplicable perniciousness, is termed as evil. Why “evil” humans are different from the rest of us is not understood by most people. Evil, they assume, is just an inborn quality. And because it is inherent to the individuals who possess it, people believe that the only way to stop them is to their exterminate them, or at the very least incarcerate them, so that they remain away from a society that they could destroy if given free rein. More >
Awesome discovery of the week: Glass melts when it gets too cold
Feb 23rd
Anyone who’s seen enough old Sesame Street episodes or been to enough Renaissance Fairs knows that when glass gets hot enough, it turns to liquid. Applied heat pumps energy into the solid pieces of glass, getting their molecules jiggling. As the heat dissipates, the glass becomes cool and solidifies again.p
Glass melts when it gets too cold
Most of the time, not many interesting things happen once a substance gets below the temperature required for solidification. Its atoms are bound to one another, and without the introduction of some kind of energy, they’ll stay that way. Glass, it turns out, is the exception. Once it gets close to absolute zero, it melts again.
But what could make that happen? The atoms in glass chilled to near-absolute zero have almost no energy, so they can’t be jiggling fast enough to tear apart from each other. And yet, on paper and in computer simulations, glass returned to a liquid form when brought close enough to absolute zero.
The wild card turned out to be quantum mechanics. Once the atoms of glass became still enough, they stopped acting like particles and instead acted like waves. The wave-like atoms now were able to flow, moving through spaces too small for particles to get through. This motion, and this ability to fit through small spaces, causes ultra-cold glass to melt into a liquid. No word yet if this works on the T-1000.
How to Have a Lucid Dream – Wake up in a Dream – Part I
Feb 20th
Lucid dreaming need not be elusive. Some simple techniques can make it possible for almost anyone.
Lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming can be a very powerful experience for the dreamer. “You can be the absolute master of your dream world,” says MortalMist.com, a website and forum dedicated to lucid dreaming. “The very laws of nature can be bent and broken. No experience is beyond your reach, no feat too difficult or risky. If you can imagine it, you can make it happen.”
Many people report wonderful experiences in the dream worlds they’ve created. For some, though, lucid dreaming remains elusive. But there is good news; becoming skilled at “waking up” in a dream may be easier than it seems. There are several techniques that can be used to enter the world of lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming requires three things:
- the ability to recall dreams,
- a technique, known as a reality check, to become aware of dreaming, and
- strategies to remain in the dream.
Tips for Recalling Dreams More >
Morgellons Disease
Jan 23rd
Morgellons disease is a mysterious skin disorder characterized by disfiguring sores and crawling sensations on and under the skin. Although Morgellons disease isn’t widely recognized as a medical diagnosis, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are investigating reports of the condition, which they refer to as unexplained dermopathy.
Morgellons Disease
If you suspect that you have Morgellons disease, you may have many questions about the condition. Here’s what you need to know about Morgellons disease, including practical tips for managing your signs and symptoms.
What are the signs and symptoms of Morgellons disease?
People who have Morgellons disease report the following signs and symptoms:
- Skin rashes or sores that can cause intense itching
- Crawling sensations on and under the skin, often compared to insects moving, stinging or biting
- Fibers, threads or black stringy material in and on the skin
- Severe fatigue
- Inability to concentrate and short-term memory loss
- Behavioral changes
- Joint pain
- Vision changes
Morgellons disease shares characteristics with various recognized conditions, including Lyme disease, liver or kidney disease, schizophrenia, drug or alcohol abuse, and a mental illness involving false beliefs about infestation by parasites (delusional parasitosis).
How widespread is Morgellons disease? More >
Codex Seraphinianus
Jan 19th
The Codex Seraphinianus is a book written and illustrated by the Italian artist, architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini during thirty months, from 1976 to 1978. The book is approximately 360 pages long (depending on edition), and appears to be a visual encyclopedia of an unknown world, written in one of its languages, a thus-far undeciphered alphabetic writing.
Who were the people who had invented Tlön? The plural is unavoidable, because we have unanimously rejected the idea of a single creator, some transcendental Leibnitz working in modest obscurity. – Jorge Luis Borges, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”
Like a Borges story, this is as much about the quest for knowledge as it is about the knowledge itself. It involves books missing from libraries, lost translations, and people not answering letters.
The Codex is divided into eleven chapters, partitioned into two sections. The first section appears to describe the natural world, dealing with flora, fauna, and physics. The second deals with the humanities, the various aspects of human life: clothing, history, cuisine, architecture and so on. Each chapter seems to treat a general encyclopedic topic.
The illustrations are often surreal parodies of things in our world: bleeding fruit; a plant that grows into roughly the shape of a chair and is subsequently made into one; a lovemaking couple that metamorphoses into an alligator; etc. Others depict odd, apparently senseless machines, often with a delicate appearance, kept together by tiny filaments. There are also illustrations readily recognizable, as maps or human faces. On the other hand, especially in the “physics” chapter, many images look almost completely abstract. Practically all figures are brightly coloured and rich in detail. More >
Stem Cell Transplant Cures HIV In ‘Berlin Patient’
Dec 17th
On the heels of World AIDS Day comes a stunning medical breakthrough: Doctors believe an HIV-positive man who underwent a stem cell transplant has been cured as a result of the procedure.
Stem cell transplant
Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient,” received the transplant in 2007 as part of a lengthy treatment course for leukemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming that the results of extensive testing “strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved.”
Brown’s case paves a path for constructing a permanent cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.
Last week, Time named another AIDS-related discovery to its list of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010. Recent studies show that healthy individuals who take antiretrovirals, medicine commonly prescribed for treating HIV, can reduce their risk of contracting the disease by up to 73 percent.
While these developments by no means prove a cure for the virus has been found, they can certainly provide hope for the more than 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Alongside such findings, global efforts to combat the epidemic have accelerated as of late, with new initiatives emerging in the Philippines and South Africa this week.
Congenital Insensitivity To Pain – People Who Can’t Feel Pain – CIPA
Dec 14th
CIPA or congenital insensitivity to pain is one of the rarest diseases in the world. A very rare condition and it is also known as congenital analgia. People diagnosed with this condition have their pain sensors turned off and they can’t feel any pain. The condition is extremely dangerous as these people are prone to danger not knowing the level of pain inflicted.
Congenital Insensitivity To Pain – People Who Can’t Feel Pain
What caused the disorder? It is an unknown condition when the brain that recognizes the pain does not connect to the nerves that sense the pain. This unknown condition only happens to the pain sensors. People with CIPA have their other sensory areas completely checked and normal. Incredibly a rare disease, 35 people in the United States is diagnosed with CIPA. Sadly, people with CIPA has low survival rate and many doesn’t live that long to the age of 25 making the case a difficult case to study.
Pains are relatively a unique sense. It keeps us out of trouble, our body defense against harmful actions and not being able to feel pain is totally dangerous. Children especially will need to know how to sense this pain. We need to know what we should or shouldn’t do when we feel pain and we also know how not to cause pain to ourselves. Pain can help you to avoid danger and what causing this danger.
Anhidrosis, a condition of the body’s inability to sweat is found in people with CIPA. This condition can worsen the issue. With Anhidrosis, people with CIPA are not able to feel extreme temperature. Together with this and the body’s inability to sweat only means that their body is unable to regulate its temperature. More >
How cats master the physical universe when they lap up milk!
Dec 14th
When cats drink, they never splash or make a mess. It turns out there’s a solid scientific reason for that. As a group of MIT engineers discovered, feline lapping requires a finely-tuned mastery of fluid dynamics.
cats
It turns out that cats’ sense of balance and grace extends even to their drinking habits. Until this study, people thought that cats lapped by curling their tongue backwards, so it hits the water like the tail end of a lower-case “g”, and then curled it forward so it scooped up water like a spoon. But when MIT researchers studied slow-motion video of their own cats, as well as videos of big cats on YouTube, they found out that cats are too good to use spoons.
Instead of scooping the water, a cat’s tongue speeds along the surface of it, pulling a layer of water upwards. The motion of the tongue creates an unbroken column of water that gushes up towards the mouth of the cat and lets the cat take a sip of water. When the motion of the tongue stops, the water stops coming, and the cat doesn’t get splashed.
It sounds like a simple trick, until you try it. The researchers constructed a model cat tongue that lapped up water. In order for it to do so effectively, it didn’t just have to mimic cat behavior – it had to grapple with the Froude number. More >
18 Health Tricks to Teach Your Body – Part I
Dec 11th
Cure a Tickling Throat
Doctor Checking the Blood Pressure of a Patient
When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, especially if it serves as a health remedy. Take that tickle in your throat: It’s not worth gagging over. Here’s a better way to scratch your itch: Scratch your ear. “When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm,” says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. “This spasm relieves the tickle.”
Experience Supersonic Hearing
If you’re stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It’s better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.
Overcome Your Most Primal Urge
Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about Jessica Simpson. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won’t feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. For best results, try Simpson’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking” video. More >
Trichotillomania
Dec 10th
Trichotillomania is hair loss from compulsive pulling or twisting of the hair until it breaks off.
Trichotillomania
Causes
Trichotillomania is a type of compulsive behavior. Its causes are not clearly understood.
It may affect as much as 4% of the population. Women are four times more likely to be affected than men.
Symptoms
Symptoms usually begin before age 17. The hair may come out in round patches or across the scalp. The effect is an uneven appearance. The person may pluck other hairy areas, such as the eyebrows, eyelashes, or body hair.
These symptoms are usually seen in children:
- An uneven appearance to the hair
- Bare patches or all around (diffuse) loss of hair
- Bowel blockage (obstruction) if people eat the hair they pull out
- Constant tugging, pulling, or twisting of hair
- Denying the hair pulling
- Hair regrowth that feels like stubble in the bare spots
- Increasing sense of tension before the hair pulling
- Other self-injury behaviors
- Sense of relief, pleasure, or gratification after the hair pulling More >
