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Meditation As a Form of Mental Exercise to Improve the Brain

Tyson Gautreaux
AllAboutTop News
Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:00 UTC
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© h.koppdelaneyBenefits of Meditation
People exercise so they can build and boost their muscles. Can they do the same for their brain using meditation? A group of contemplative neuroscientists believe that that there's a direct connection between meditation and improving the brain in the form of mental exercise.

Contemplative neuroscience is a new field that backs up this claim. It deals with the brain science of meditation and is being led by Richard Davidson, a psychologist who has been practicing meditation for decades.

"We all know that if you engage in certain kinds of exercise on a regular basis you can strengthen certain muscle groups in predictable ways," he said.

"Strengthening neural systems is not fundamentally different. "It's basically replacing certain habits of mind with other habits," Davidson also added.

Comment: Another form of meditation that showed proven benefits, check out the Éiriú Eolas Breathing and Meditation program, which can be found here

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Better Earth

Bitter Taste Receptors Discovered on Human Lungs, Could Help to Treat Asthma

Tiffany Kaiser
DailyTech
Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:03 UTC
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© news.sc
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore have found that the human lungs have bitter taste receptors much like those located in the mouth, which could lead to improved treatment of asthma and other lung diseases.

Stephen B. Liggett, M.D., lead author of the study and professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine; Deepak A. Deshpande, Ph.D., author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine; and John Hopkins University researchers Steven S. An and James S. K. Sham have discovered bitter taste receptors in the human lungs on accident while studying human lung muscle receptors, which regulate airway relaxation and contraction.

"The detection of functioning taste receptors on smooth muscle of the bronchus in the lungs was so unexpected that we were at first quite skeptical ourselves," said Liggett.
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Colgate Palmolive Accused of Patenting Ancient Indian Recipe for Toothpaste

Jonathan Turley
jonathanturley.org
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Unknown
We have previously discussed how some of us view the patent, trademark and copyright laws as running out of control in this country.

Now, there is an interesting fight between the United States and India over a move by Colgate Palmolive to patent an ancient recipe for herbal toothpaste. The Indians say that the recipe has been used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years by Indians and would now be claimed as the property of the company.

The recipe including clove oil, camphor, black pepper and spearmint is used widely in India and could be the start of companies claiming ownership of Indian folk medicines.

Colgate was granted the patent in the U.S. in June and insists that the recipe is a groundbreaking "red herbal dentifrice." It is likely to argue that the addition of red iron oxide distinguishes its product from the traditional recipe.
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Evil Rays

Monsanto Offering to Pay Farmers to Help Bail Them Out


Organic Horizon
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:34 UTC
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© UnknownHurry boys! Start bailing!
What a shame. Weed resistance to glyphosate (Roundup) is getting so bad, that Monsanto is offering to PAY soybean farmers to use herbicides other than Glyphosate...
Monsanto Co. is paying farmers to increase the number of herbicides they're using. The rebate program is designed to prevent more acrage from getting infested with weeds that are resistant to one particularly popular herbicide, Roundup.
What a beautiful system: 1) A magical chemical that magically kills all plant life. 2) A crop genetically engineered to be resistant to the magical chemical. 3) A wise and powerful corporation who manufactured the magic chemical and controlled the genetically engineered seed. Profits abounded (for the wise and powerful corporation). Farmers enjoyed fields so perfectly clear of weeds, as to be unimaginable before the term, "Roundup Ready" hit the late night TV commercial airwaves.
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Evil Rays

Monsanto falls from grace

Diane Grace
oh-yay.com
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:19 UTC
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Monsanto falls from grace and Dr Joseph Mercola is pleased
Monsanto, the giant biotechnology agriculture company that created genetically modified corn, soybeans and herbicides, is suffering as its products appear to be failing.

Leading natural health advocate Dr Joseph Mercola, and one of Monsanto's greatest critics, is ecstatic to see the company he hates so much suffer.

Dr Mercola has posted the news of Monsanto's apparent turn of fortunes on his website Mercola.com - which he claims is the world's number one natural health website.

Like other natural health advocates, Dr Mercola has long been an opponent of genetically modified foods.

"Monsanto isn't riding so high this year in the stocks department, as news comes in that its products aren't working like they'd hoped," Dr Mercola writes.
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Hands Off "Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS)" Says Brunei Health Ministry


The Brunei Times
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:00 UTC
The Ministry of Health yesterday issued a public advisory against selling and purchasing a product called "Miracle Mineral Solution" or "Miracle Mineral Supplement" which is available through the Internet.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against reports advising consumers to dilute several drops of the solution (28 per cent sodium chlorite) with citric acid before adding the mixture to water or juice before drinking it.

This mixture will produce chlorine dioxide which is a form of industrial bleach normally used in industrial textile manufacturing and industrial water treatment.

This industrial strength solution is a health hazard as it can induce vomiting and severe diarrhea.
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Health

As Bug Spreads, Ugandans Watch Their Flesh Rot Away


The Associated Press
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Godfrey Olukya/Associated PressA 40-year-old man in eastern Uganda shows hands and feet infested by flea-like, blood-sucking jiggers. At least 20 Ugandans have died, and more than 20,000 have been sickened in just two months. Uganda's government has allocated $1 million to fight the epidemic.
A disease with progression and symptoms that seem straight out of a horror movie has killed at least 20 Ugandans and sickened more than 20,000 in just two months.

Jiggers, small insects that look like fleas, are the culprits in the epidemic, which causes parts of the body to rot. They often enter through the feet. Once inside a human, they suck blood and multiply by the hundreds. Affected body parts -- buttocks, lips, even eyelids -- rot away.

James Kakooza, Uganda's minister of state for primary health care, said jiggers can easily kill young children and cause early deaths in grown-ups with other diseases.

The parasitic disease, named tungiasis, also exists in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Some affected people in rural Uganda, such as Dakaba Kaala, 60, say they are bewitched and simply wait to die.
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Roses

Windowfarming - Join people all over the world!


YouTube.com/Windowfarms
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:29 UTC
Windowfarms is an open source community developing hydroponic gardens for urban windows.

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Family

Food in Uncertain Times: How to Grow and Store the 5 Crops You Need to Survive

Makenna Goodman
ChelseaGreen
Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:56 UTC
the resiliant gardener
© Carol Deppe

Having food resiliency is as much about learning how to store and use food properly as it is about growing it. The key is learning interdependence not independence.

In an age of erratic weather and instability, it's increasingly important to develop a greater self-reliance when it comes to food. And because of this, more than ever before, farmers are developing new gardening techniques that help achieve a greater resilience. Longtime gardener and scientist Carol Deppe, in her new book The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, offers a wealth of unique and expansive information for serious home gardeners and farmers who are seeking optimistic advice. Do you want to know more about the five crops you need to survive through the next thousand years? What about tips for drying summer squash, for your winter soups? Ever thought of keeping ducks on your land? Read on.
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Health

Best of the Web: Unsafe at any dose: Hormone therapy boosts cancer death risk

Martha Rosenberg
FoodConsumer
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:29 UTC
pink cancer ribbon, breast
© elements4health.com

Want to increase your chances of getting node-positive breast cancer and dying from it? Take hormone therapy.

Pharma's lucrative estrogen plus progestin combo is already known to increase the chance of getting breast cancer by 26 percent. But an article in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows hormone therapy also increases the chance of dying from breast cancer, as follow-ups are conducted on women who took it.

In fact hormone therapy, already indicted for causing delays in breast cancer diagnosis by increasing breast density (and increasing lung cancer deaths) is now so dangerous Dr. Peter B. Bach from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who wrote an accompanying JAMA editorial, told the New York Times the very advice of "taking the lowest possible doses for the shortest possible time" is now questionable. Perhaps like prescribing the fewest and lowest tar cigarettes as possible.

Comment: While discussing the danger of hormone therapy, this article takes a few swipes at smoking. Let us point out that contrary to hormone therapy, which is harmful and promoted by Big Pharma, smoking is beneficial by boosting the acetylcholine level in your brain and thereby promoting learning, thinking and reducing stress. For more information on the anti-smoking scam, read our Focus article below:

Let's All Light Up!

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