I had a stroke this last week, and then spent 5 days in the ICU/Observation ward at Suan Dok Hospital. Partial paralysis on both sides of the body, but more severe on the left side. CAT scan showed that there was no blood clof on the brain. so not as horrific as it could have been. But not a pleasant experience.
Typing is still very difficult, so Jing -reed posts will be a bit on the light side for a while.
"This documentary tells the story of how the evil and greedy American corporation Mansanto has developed food staples (soy, corn) that have been genetically modified (GM) and carry potentially lethal (carcenigenous) strains and how it has conspired, with the help of corrupt officials everywhere, to have those GM seeds gradually replace the existing ones worldwide, all in the name of profit, thereby levying royalties on anyone who uses their products.
These GM organisms are also based on a lie. They were created to eliminate the need for insecticides, yet require just as much insecticides and fertilizers as non-genetically modified organisms.
This unrelenting policy has made possible the silencing of dissenting scientists, the firing or corruption of government employees and officials in the United States and abroad and the displacement, elimination, impoverishment and, frequently, death or suicide of thousands upon thousands of small farmers in the world's poorer countries (Brazil, Mexico,Argentina, India, and so on). Monsanto's deadly poisonous seeds are also destroying by contamination the genetic stock of most foods on this planet so that the time will soon come when the Earth's population will never be sure of what it is ingesting and of its effect on their health.
It sounds like a sci-fi or at least nightmarish scenario. Unfortunately, it's all true. This film could only be made in France as the European Union requires the labeling of all GM products while the US do not." [Amazon comment]
"There's nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it -- it's strategic. It's more powerful than bombs. It's more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world.
The story starts in the White House, where Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over policymakers via the "revolving door". One example is Michael Taylor, who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company's vice president for public policy.
Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market. Monsanto's long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects. Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific evidence." [YouTube leader]
Evolution continues to have an impact on our lives -- the food we eat, our environment, and our health. Through the story of a multi-drug resistant strain of tuberculosis in the prisons of Russia, we see evolution in action today. This video illustrates how evolution is important to our understanding of disease prevention and treatment in Russia, and around the world.
Fundamentalist christians may not 'believe' in evolution, or bacteria for that matter, but it impacts their lives as well as everyone else on the planet.
"FAITH can open your mind but it can also cause your brain to shrink at a different rate, research suggests.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Centre in the US claim to have discovered a correlation between religious practices and changes in the brains of older adults.
The study, published in the open-access science journal, Public Library of Science ONE, asked 268 people aged 58 to 84 about their religious group, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Changes in the volume of their hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with learning and memory, were tracked using MRI scans, over two to eight years.
Protestants who did not identify themselves as born-again were found to have less atrophy in the hippocampus region than did born-again Protestants, Catholics or those with no religious affiliation. Frequency of worship was not found to have a bearing on results, while participants who said they had undergone a religious experience were found to have more atrophy than those who did not.
Although the brain tends to shrink with age, atrophy in the hippocampus has been linked with depression and Alzheimer's disease.
The study authors Amy Owen and David Hayward said the changes were not explained by other factors that affect hippocampal atrophy, such as age, education, depression or brain size."
Well, God may not heal amputees, but it appears that contemporary medical science has been able to do so.
"26-year-old single mom looking forward to doing the 'little things' again
Six-and-a-half weeks after receiving the first hand transplant in the western United States, Emily Fennell is becoming so accustomed to her new right hand that she barely remembers when she didn't have one.
The 26-year-old from Yuba City, Calif., underwent transplant surgery at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, a 14-hour procedure that began just before midnight on March 4 and concluded at 2:30 p.m. the next day.
"It has been surreal to see that I have a hand again, and be able to wiggle my fingers. My 6-year-old daughter has never seen me with a hand," said Fennell, a single mother. "She looked at it, touched it and said it was 'cool.' "
Fennell was discharged from the hospital April 8 and will continue to stay near UCLA for two months for monitoring and occupational therapy. .....
Several days ago I posted about 'mindfulness meditation'. This a more thorough examination of the process, which may help to dispel the common occidental notion that meditation is little more than navel gazing.
Scientist and author Jon Kabat-Zinn has changed medicine through his work on meditation and stress. We can explore what he has learned, through science and experience, about mindfulness as a way of life; about slowing down time, as he says, and "opening to our lives." This is wisdom with immediate relevance to the ordinary and extreme stresses of our time — from economic peril, to parenting, to life in a digital age.
In 1971, Dr. Kabat-Zinn received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from MIT.
"I'm listening with new ears this week to Jon Kabat-Zinn's practical approach for calming ourselves, and also being a nourishing presence in the world. Before this interview, I had read and heard of Jon Kabat-Zinn for years. But I hadn't really grasped that he is first a scientist — a molecular biologist — and second one of the world's leading experts on meditation. And it was when I listened to talks he'd given at Google and MIT that I really wanted to have this conversation with him. He is the real thing — a teacher — with a personal combination of erudition, warmth, wit, and wisdom. As we began to speak, he told me that the seeds were planted in his earliest life with his microbiologist father and painter mother to pursue the nature of the human condition in its fullest sense.
In more than three decades of work at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Jon Kabat-Zinn has contributed mightily to demystifying meditation — taking it out of a box that says it is only for Buddhists or special practitioners, then studying its effects clinically and bringing the fruits of his research into life-changing work with the ill and dying, with leaders, and with Olympic athletes. ...."
"Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.
"Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."
Previous studies from Lazar's group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced mediation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation. . . . . . . "
Sir Terry Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s, and as of August 2010 had sold over 65 million books worldwide in thirty-seven languages.He is currently the second most-read writer in the UK, and seventh most-read non-US author in the US. He now suffers from Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) - a type of Alzheimer’s which affects the back of the brain - rather than the more common form which attacks the front of the brain and memory.
My heartfelt appreciation of Pratchett and Tony Robinson for reading Pratchett's lecture for Dimbleby annual lecture. [Complements to Tony Robinson for the 'reading'...he seemed to have read not a single word, but to appeared to have memorised the entire speech.]
Richard Dimbleby Lecture from the Royal College of Physicians Sir Terry Pratchett - 'Shaking Hands With Death' [Orator: Tony Robinson]
Terry Pratchett Lecture about Alzheimer's and assisted dying - [1/6]
Ralph Vaughn Williams - Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis [the inclusion of this musical selection will have significance only if you have watched the lecture]
"Evidence of the Afterlife shares the firsthand accounts of people who have died and lived to tell about it. Through their work at the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long and his wife, Jody, have gathered thousands of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from all over the world. In addition to sharing the personal narrative of their experiences, visitors to the website are asked to fill out a one hundred–item questionnaire designed to isolate specific elements of the experience and to flag counterfeit accounts.
The website has become the largest NDE research database in the world, containing over 1,600 NDE accounts. The people whose stories are captured in the database span all age groups, races, and religious affiliations and come from all over the world, yet the similarities in their stories are as awe-inspiring as they are revealing. Using this treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how medical evidence fails to explain these reports and why there is only one plausible explanation—that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension."
The Day I Died - Near-death Experience, BBC Documentary 2002
"This program explores the phenomenon of near death experiences as reported by people who have been recorded clinically dead while undergoing cardiac arrest or serious surgical procedures, yet have then survived to recall their experience."
One of the most fascinating accounts of an NDE is that of Anita M. I first heard about Anita and her amazing recovery from cancer from a friend who was visiting me from Hong Kong last year.
"Anita M. was born in Singapore and then lived in Sri Lanka until she was 2 years old. An ethnic Sindhi woman from India, her family then moved to Hong Kong where she grew up speaking fluent Sindhi, Cantonese and English, as well as being conversant with a multitude of cultural idioms. Although a Hindu by birth, she was educated first in Catholic schools and then in private English schools in Hong Kong and later studied in England . . . . .
In April 2002 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and after nearly 4 years of battling the disease, she was taken to the intensive care unit of her local hospital in February 2006 where she was given less than 36 hours to live. Her remarkable NDE and seeming miraculous recovery from cancer has created enormous interest and commentary on an international scale. . . . . . "
From compound organ failure and immanent death to complete and immediate remission makes for interesting reading.
"Narrator Cori Brackett had a strange cause-and-effect experience with the diet cokes she was drinking and quickly found herself disabled and diagnosed with MS. Slowly able to walk and speak again, she believes her illness is linked to aspartame. She is a co-owner of a video/film production company. After 7000 miles, and 25 hours of footage,
"Sweet Misery" reveals one of the most pervasive, insidious forms of U.S. corporate deceit since tobacco and the entire world is paying the price !
60 Minutes news segment on Aspartame / NutraSweet safety issues from December 29, 1996. Focuses on brain tumors seen in research, concern over problems with pre-approval research, differing results of independent research as compared to manufacturer research.