Science Friday: What is a Flame? (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, NPR, Science Friday

Flame footage: Dale R. Tree, Tadd T. Truscott, Preston Murray, Jonathon Pendlebury.

Humans are thought to have mastered controlled fire in the middle of the Paleolithic era. Half a million years later, engineers Tadd Truscott and Dale Tree, of Brigham Young University, are trying to quantify it. Using high speed cameras and computer algorithms, they are reconstructing fire, digitally. Understanding flames better can help us use fire better, they say.

Candle Gazing Meditation
Candle gazing meditation is called trakata in Sanskrit (yogawithmarnie.com).

There is a simple but very effective form of meditation -- staring into the center of a candle flame until the countersign is developed and the light becomes visible even when not staring at the fire. It does not involve thinking. Quite to the contrary, it involves arresting and settling the mind. Consciousness continues and in fact becomes a fuller awareness; lucidity actually increases with the cessation of discursive thought, ratiocination, and contemplation. Our natural assumption is that "our" thoughts and ideas are us. What a relief that they think themselves, follow their own course, come and go. The real relief is even temporary release from neurotic revolving in mind. Steady focusing on a flame has the power to bring this about. Of course, this is only the first step. The goal is not simply to stop the mental chatter and be serene. This meditation can be developed to absorption (first jhana). And that sets the foundation for successful insight meditation or vipassana.

(BodyMindPower) Video, music, text: Anke Moehlmann (BMP Music), Mystic Journey Vol. 1 & 2, Yoga Sunset Chill I-III, bodymindpower.de.

A short Candle Meditation may inspire some to meditate with a candle. Use a non-paraffin candle free of toxic petroleum products and synthetic fragrances for best results, such as a simple oil lamp, soy candle, or this video:

It is a simple form of meditation that brings deep relaxation. And it is a fantastic way to improve concentration skills. The flame is an aid to go into a deep state of meditation. If thoughts come just let them be there watching them drifting by. Eyes may water a little, which is normal and helps clear them removing tiredness and improving eyesight.

When the eyes starts to burn, close them and visualize the flame with the third eye, the point between the eyebrows.

As a result of focusing on the flame, it feels as though that there is no distance between the eyes and flame. One might become one with the flame and enter a deep state of peace and tranquility.

Take a comfortable seat that promotes alertness, which usually means an erect but relaxed back that is not leaning on anything. Allow the eyes to relax while gazing at the flame. Breathe in and out at the center of the solar plexus. With each in and outflow of the breath, allow the entire body and mind to become more and more relaxed.

Complete the meditation by allowing a few minutes to come back to Earth. Close the eyes for a few minutes. Then slowly move head, hands, and feet before slowly standing.

• Learn more VIDEO: Mapping Flames
• How cooking made us human
• Managing forest to manage wildfires
• The physics of setting leaves aflame
  

Invoking the Buddha to protect the Forests

Brendan Brady (The World (PRI, August 30, 2011)

Buddhists in Cambodia are ordaining trees in order to protect the endangered forests they grow in (arcworld.org).

The young, novice monk Sar Vy says he does not need to understand the science of climate change to know that his country and its people -- as well as the wider world -- benefit from forest conservation.

• PLAY AUDIO (DOWNLOAD)

[Buddhist monk] Tha Soun’s orange robe shimmers as he strolls through a patch of forest in Northern Cambodia, pointing out trees and shrubs with medicinal benefits. He gestures toward berries that he says are good for joint and muscle pain, and a beehive full of nutritious wild honey.

The Buddhist/Hindu Khmer empire, like the corresponding jungle empires of Mesoamerica, was once the largest in Asia (khmerlibrarypicture).

Tha and his fellow monks from nearby Samraong pagoda have presided over this 44-thousand acre forest known as Sorng Rukavorn, or simply Monk Forest, for a decade. These days it seems a serene garden, but it wasn’t always so.

Tha says that not long ago, police and soldiers would come here to poach timber.

“I would advise them to stop if I thought they might listen,” Tha says. “But if they wouldn’t listen, I would just take away their chainsaws and weapons.”

Tha says he and the other members of his Buddhist community have succeeded in protecting the forest because they are respected spiritual figures. But his experience before he became a monk certainly helps as well.

“The soldiers don’t scare me, because I used to be a soldier, too,” Tha says.

This determination helps preserve the forest for use by both the monks and the local community. Now, the effort could also provide lucrative for Cambodia.

Monk Forest is one of 13 community forests totaling more than 250 square miles in Odder Meanchey province whose value in fighting climate change is being marketed in an international exchange of what are called avoided deforestation carbon credits. That’s a mouthful that basically means Cambodia hopes to get paid by outsiders not to cut down their trees. More

Buddhism on The World

• How Democracy is Evolving in Bhutan
• Bhutan’s tough tobacco laws
• Glimpses of Bhutan
• Self-immolation as protest
• Historic cave town
• Mourning China’s earthquake victims
• Aid effort in western China intensifies

"Portable Buddha," S.E. Asia (Mariano Jimenez)

The Happiness Project (audio)

SCPR.org (Southern California Public Radio, Part 1, July 25, 2011)

Gretchen Rubin on "The Happiness Project" (reschoolyourself.com)

• Download "The Loh Life"
  

Science-lover Sandra Tsing Loh and her friend adopt The Happiness Project. Thank [goodness] for Gretchen Rubin, author of the New York Times Number One Bestseller, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT! Rubin has made it finally SAFE for EDUCATED, financially SOLVENT, productively working, happily married MOTHERS with just a BIT of unresolved free-floating MELANCHOLY to come OUT of the closet. First World women don’t have to feel... LISTEN

Wellness TV: Sex and the City's Kristin Davis once starred on NBC's "The Happiness Project" (blisstree.com).

Western Sex Crimes ("The Whistleblower")

(NPR, July 30, 2011) In 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac had run into hard times. A police officer in Lincoln, Nebraska, who had recently lost custody of her daughters in a divorce settlement, she was looking for a new job that would give her the means to live near them.

• LISTEN: Whistleblower made into a Hollywood heroine
  

When Bolkovac heard she could earn good money in a short period of time by becoming part of the U.N. International Police Force in Bosnia -- run by a private British agency called DynCorp -- she decided to sign on.

She found herself in the middle of an alarming human trafficking web. Mobsters were transporting teenage girls to bars and brothels for sex, and beyond turning a blind eye, the security firm and U.N. personnel seemed to be caught up in the trafficking themselves. She tried to sound the alarm, and she was fired.

Bolkovac, whose story has been adapted into a new movie called The Whistleblower (opening in some theaters on August 5) tells NPR's Scott Simon that her suspicion was first raised during a training session in Ft. Worth, Texas, before she ever left for Bosnia. "One of the men who had done previous missions in Bosnia came bounding into the pool with a beer stating where he could find really nice 12- to 15-year-olds once we got to Bosnia," Bolkovac says. More

• "Horseplay" is a sex crime now
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• Leaving Greenpeace - what causes global warming?
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• Indian women's health (blog)
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• "Christian terrorist"? Norway case sparks world debate
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• Hustler Magazine wants Casey Anthony for $500K

Amy Winehouse at world's biggest rock festival

God's Approval Ratings Are Down (video)

WARNING: Potentially offensive or humorous depiction of how the Great Creator (Maha Brahma) in theistic faiths might have produced the universe, subsequent evolution, and the Church's alternative theory ("Family Guy").

God's Approval Rating Barely Breaks 50 percent
Jack Jenkins (Religion News Service)

WASHINGTON (RNS) - More than half of U.S. voters approve of God’s job performance, according to a new poll, making God more popular than all members of Congress.

• LISTEN: "God's Polling Power" (NPR)
  
• God's approval rating is 52%, a very theological poll
• VIDEO: Secret NPR: Bias or fake controversy? (newsy.com)
  

The poll -- which was conducted by the Democratic research firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) -- surveyed 928 people and found that 52 percent of Americans approved of God’s overall dealings [they particularly liked "its" creation of the universe], while only 9 percent disapproved.

Questions about God were asked as part of a larger survey assessing American opinions of congressional leaders in the midst of the ongoing debt ceiling debate in Washington.

God’s approval rating exceeded that of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, with each party receiving only a 33 percent approval rating.

God also polled significantly higher than the scandal-ridden media baron Rupert Murdoch: only 12 percent of those polled viewed him favorably, compared to 49 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

“Though not the most popular figure PPP has polled, if God exists, voters are prepared to give it (sic) good marks,” PPP said in a July 21 press release.



The poll also gauged God’s handling of specific “issues.” When asked to rate God on the creation of the universe, 71 percent of voters approved and only 5 percent disapproved. Respondents were also generally appreciative of God’s governance of the “animal kingdom,” with 56 percent approving and 11 percent disapproving.

Younger respondents were more critical of God’s handling of natural disasters, with those ages 18-29 expressing a 26 percent disapproval rating, compared to 12 percent disapproval among those 65 and older.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

• Read more at The Huffington Post
  

Rebuilding the Buddhas of Afghanistan (NPR)

Morning Edition (National Public Radio)

PHOTOS

Bit By Bit, Afghanistan Rebuilds Buddhist Statues
(July 27, 2011) The larger of the two Buddha statues that towered over the Bamiyan Valley [thought by some archeologists and historians to be near the original Kapilavastu, where the buddha-to-be grew up], in central Afghanistan.

• LISTEN NOW
  

Foreign Troops Hand Over Province To Afghan Police

(July 17, 2011) Bamiyan province is one of seven areas going to Afghan security control this month in a first round of the transition.

Afghan Government Gathers In Bamiyan Province
(May 25, 2010) About half of the Cabinet ministers traveled to the remote capital of Bamiyan province to spend three days planning for this summer's donor...

The Buddha, once the largest in the world, overlooking the Bamiyan Valley

Notes from Afghanistan: Bamiyan

(October 28, 2006) She tells Scott Simon what has become of Bamiyan, home to the giant Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. ... Notes from Afghanistan: Bamiyan. ...Renee Montagne.

Afghans Frustrated by Slow Pace of Development

(May 19, 2008) Of all the roads in Afghanistan's mountainous Bamiyan province, only one mile is paved. ... Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

Preserving Memory of Afghanistan's Giant Buddhas

(December 13, 2006) ...An undated photo shows one of two huge Buddha statues in Bamiyan before they were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Rebuilding the Buddhas of Bamiyan

(August 15, 2004) Miranda Kennedy visits Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, where two giant Buddha statues once stood.

NPR: The Buddhas of Bamiyan
(February 23, 2002) Weekend Edition Saturday's Scott Simon visits Bamiyan, the Afghanistan town where the Taliban destroyed two giant Buddha statues.

Demand Increases for Women to Join Afghan Police
(May 03, 2007) Detective Nahid Rezaie pages through a magazine before an interrogation at Bamiyan police headquarters.

Buddhas of Bamiyan
(February 23, 2002) Giant Buddhas stood vigil over the Afghan town of Bamiyan until the Taliban destroyed the statues, causing worldwide outrage.

• AFGHANISTAN GUIDE (National Geographic)
• World's oldest oil paintings are Afghan Buddhist
• Earliest Oil Paintings Found in Famed Afghan Caves
  
• Photos: Ancient Afghan Gold to Tour U.S.
• Afghanistan: Facts, Photos, Video, More

Are there Ape-Human Hybrids? (BBC video)

(BBC Worldwide) Charlotte Uhlenbroek explains just how similar bonobos' social habits are to our own.

• AUDIO: How science treats talking chimps (NPR)

(Tehinfidel) The following is a montage of chimpanzees exhibiting human-like behavior, meshed together from various clips and set to the song "Bark" by Black Era).

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed [spiritu, spirit] into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

- On the Origin of Species, Chp. 14: Recapitulation and Conclusion

Bigfoot as Simple Human-Ape Hybrid
Human-bipedal-primate hybridization would explain the giant yeti or Abominable Snowmen of Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. These yakshis or rakshasas in Buddhist cosmology, such as the famous Yakkha Alavaka, are well known and share many human traits including speech and language.

The only known authentic footage is called the "Snow Walker" video. It was taken by two Himalayan hikers on a 1992 expedition in Nepal. Yetis are part of mountain lore, particularly among the Sherpas.

The West found this out when British expeditions were trying to get to the top of "Mt. Everest" (Nepalese, Sagarmāthā; Tibetan, Jomolungma, "Holy Mother"; Chinese, Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng, "Jomolungma Peak") more than a century ago. British climbers also saw them.

This famous clip depicts an apelike creature walking on two legs struggling through the snow. But yetis are found across the Himalayan range spanning the world's three highest peaks -- Pakistan's K2, Nepal's Everest, and India's Kangchenjunga (Sikkim).

• Did Italian Reinhold Messner see yeti or rare bear?
• Did Japanese climbers discover proof of yeti?
• VIDEO: Bigfoot in the North American Redwoods
• Why evidence for the paranormal does not improve

Giants live around 3rd highest mountain Kangchenjunga

Home of Yetis and Yakkhas: Kangchenjunga

Where is the Yaksha Kingdom?
Wisdom Quarterly edit of "Yaksha" (en.wikipedia.org)
In Buddhist and older Indian mythology, the yakṣa (Pali, yakkha) has a dual personality. On the one hand, it may refer to an inoffensive nature-fairy, associated with woods and mountains. On the other hand, it may refer to a darker creature, a kind of ogre, malevolent beast, or ghost that haunts the wilderness and waylays and devours travelers, similar to rakṣasas. Yakṣis or yakṣiṇīs (female ogres, possibly related to the word yetis) are regarded as even more vicious than the males, possibly due to their hormonal and instinctive impulses to protect their young. In Buddhist mythology, they are overseen by the spacefaring "Guardian of the Northern Quarter," a beneficent deva. According to the Mahavamsa, Prince Vijaya encountered the royalty of the yakkhas -- red haired giants in Sri Lanka akin to Steve Quayle's "giant" (nephilim) captured recently in Afghanistan's mountains, which are also part of the Himalayan range.

Keeping up with the Cold War Joneses (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

The human experimentation going on underground in subterranean military bases is astounding but hidden. Whatever Dr. Mengele and his boss were promoting or permitting, the US did not want to be left behind. There was not only a space race, but a weapons race, supernatural race (remote viewing), and a eugenics/medical advances race. The Russians and the Nazis before them could not be allowed to surpass the Americans.



What were the Russians up to? We find that out only through leaks since there is no central clearing house for the former Soviet Union and its many members. But as things get so advanced, it seems silly to hide early experiment and proofs of principle. The bodiless dog is just that. It is so unbelievable -- heartless clinical vivisection -- that it is easier to view it as Cold War anti-USSR propaganda instead. But it is real and it merely hints and all that is happening on and below American soil.



It may hurt the feelings of the parents of children afflicted with a rare premature-aging condition; nevertheless, one cannot help but notice how much these youthful individuals resemble human-extraterrestrial hybrids, the result of implantation or subsequent failed genetic manipulation.

Cloning and hybrid DNA experiments have been going on for decades (and nagas have been conducting them much longer) -- possibly producing Bigfoot type humanoids from the manipulation of close genetic relatives.



First contact took place long ago, and those many and varied unearthly beings gave the Pentagon and other above-top-secret movers and shakers a history lesson about the planet that bears little resemblance to anything we will find in textbooks. Hidden archeology, advanced alien technology, everything but immovable megalithic structures are denied, dismissed, and actively denounced. We are not allowed to know. But someone does. And from time to time, bits and pieces are leaked.

• How much will our wars cost? Report says $4 trillion
  
• The parallel world hidden inside the Earth
• The American Eugenics Movement
• AUDIO: Why US continued eugenics programs (NPR)
• Pentagon’s Psychic Vision Revisited
• VIDEO: Human-sized chimpanzees a new species?
• One billion US gold coin dollars no one wants?
• VIDEO: Broadcasting disease, thought-form aliens
• They're real: Siberian Yeti Update
• VIDEO: Siberian Bigfoot/Yeti evidence
• VIDEO: Grey Alien Clone peeking through window?

NSA illegally spying on American public

Episode: The Madeleine Brand Show (NPR) for June 13, 2011

“What does NSA mean?” This is a brief history of how the agency came into being and started abusing its mission.

NSA turns focus on American public, culls information
Madeleine Brand talks to The New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer about the increase in surveilance of American citizens by the "National Security Agency." Mayer has been investigating the national security apparatus for years.

For Thomas Drake, a [whistle blower and] former employee of the NSA, today was supposed to be his day in court. He was facing 10 felony charges, including violations of the Espionage Act, for passing state secrets to a reporter for the Baltimore Sun and he faced 35 years in prison.

However, last Friday he took a deal and pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of unauthorized use of a government computer. So now it's likely that he will be fined, but not face any jail time.

Drake's prosecution and the back story suggests that the NSA, which is supposed to focus on foreign threats to US security; it has turned inward and is compiling databases of information about American citizens:

• It keeps a copy of every email sent
• keeps track of every computer search
• keeps track of every bank transaction...
• So the dystopian, Orwellian "Big Brother" nightmare of telescreens watching all the time is back on schedule.

NSA used to just spy overseas, but why limit itself? (Welcome to the Police State)
Gov't overreaches on a suspected leak (Washington Post)

Afghanistan's wealth is hidden underground

(NPR) There's close to a $1 trillion waiting to be unearthed beneath the rocky soil of Afghanistan.

[Moreover, there are invaluable spiritual and historical Buddhist treasures waiting to be unearthed -- since this may have been the birthplace of Siddhartha, who became the Buddha, who was born in Lumbini, in Baluchistan [where Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan meet] and grew up in Kapilavastu, thought to be near the largest Buddha statues in the world prior to Taliban demolition, Bamiyan.]

The massive deposits of iron, copper, gold, and lithium [and rare earths detected by Chinese firms and crucial to the manufacture of computers, cell phones, and other advanced technology to say nothing of their burgeoning trade in heroin, a resource exploited by military forces, ours and theirs] could potentially turn the troubled nation's economy around.

"Afghanistan, with certainty I can say, in 20 years is going to be a mining country," Paul Brinkley, head of a Pentagon group called the Task Force for Business Stability Operations, tells NPR's Rachel Martin. "That is going to happen."

He sees these untapped natural resources as a means for Afghanistan to build a stronger economy.

Brinkley, who has been doing this kind of work since 2006, is stepping down from his post later this month. But he's adamant this project is only starting to scratch the surface.

"This is a resource the Afghans are beginning to understand offers them a future," he says.

Business In A War Zone
To Brinkley, Afghanistan's mineral deposits are the country's chance at having a core indigenous source of wealth. But he knows it's not as simple as just getting those minerals out of the ground.

Brinkley says that in order to properly develop the mining industry, "creation has to take place of business practices."

In the past, Afghanistan has seen lots money come into the country through illicit industries like opium production. He notes minerals can't be smuggled in the same way drugs can, so Afghans will need to engage in legal business transactions and build working relationships to make this work. More

Pentagon: No rush for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan

Afghan forces in spotlight as U.S. debates role

Afghanistan

Macs hit by Malware, iPhones could be next

Unless Apple, Inc. acts fast, Macs are no immune from malware, and iPhones could be hit next. It has taken steps to stop a malware "phishing" program (Image: cutcaster.com).

(NPR, June 6) Apple's computers have been able to avoid most serious hacking attacks, but that era may be over. As Steve Jobs and his colleagues prepared for this week's developers conference, the company was also taking steps to stop a malware "phishing" program.

The ploy, says technology columnist Rich Jaroslovsky of Bloomberg News, uses an infected website to install a piece of software on Apple computers. The software then pops up a new window, with an urgent message about a security vulnerability.

As Jaroslovsky tells NPR's Renee Montagne, the rogue window includes "a scary-sounding message that tells you that your computer is infected, and that you need software to eradicate the infection — and to please give your credit card number." More

Technology
CALLING THE INTERNET POLICE
Hackers Target FBI Affiliate, Post Passwords Online
The hacking collective, Lulz Security, also recently targeted Nintendo, Sony, and PBS.
Nintendo: Server Breached, No Data Lost

FBI Partner Attacked By Hackers, Passwords Taken

Area 51 Uncensored: UFOs or USSR trick?

Terri Gross (NPR, Fresh Air, WHYY, May 17, 2011)

U.S. Geological Survey "Area 51" from above in 1968

• LISTEN

[The cover up continues with a new and outrageous twist: Russian genetic anomalies in a UFO-like spy plane were crashed in the US to scare Americans.]

Seventy-five miles north of Las Vegas sits a land parcel in the middle of the desert. Called Area 51, the parcel is just outside of the abandoned Nevada Test and Training Range, where more than 100 atmospheric bomb tests were conducted in the 1950s.

Officially, the U.S. government has never acknowledged the existence of Area 51. Unofficially, it has become a place associated with conspiracy theories, alien landings and tiny spaceships.

Journalist Annie Jacobsen tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that the site has remained classified for many years -- not because of aliens or spaceships, but because the government once used the site for top-secret nuclear testing and weapons development.

In Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, Jacobsen details how several agencies -- including the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Defense and the CIA -- once used the site to conduct controversial and secretive research on aircraft and pilot-related projects, including planes that traveled three times faster than the speed of sound and nuclear-propelled, space-based missile launch systems.

Area 51: An Uncensored History, Annie Jacobsen

Read an Excerpt

Operation Plumbbob

In the summer and fall of 1957, a series of atmospheric nuclear tests -- called Operation Plumbbob -- were conducted above ground at the Nevada testing and training range, located just outside of Area 51.

Twenty-nine explosions were set off while tests were conducted on troop readiness, accidental detonations and the effects of flying debris on living targets, according to documents declassified by the Department of Energy that Jacobsen details in her book.

During the explosions, security officer Richard Mingus stood guard outside many of the weapons-testing sites, including one with the largest atmospheric bomb that has ever exploded in the United States. More