What Can Be Done About the Plastic Vortex?
It’s not easy to get rid of a bobbing plastic wasteland twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But that’s the exact challenge that a group of conservationists and scientists will try to figure out.
Called the “Eastern Garbage Patch,” also known as the “Plastic Vortex,” this toxic floating dump site northeast of Hawaii has been slowly building up over the past 60 years and continues to grow in size and complexity.
This summer the group will set out on a 70-day expedition, called Project Kaisei, sailing from San Francisco to Hawaii and back, and will attempt to analyze and determine the best way to remove it (to later convert it into diesel fuel) with the least amount of damaging effects on the surrounding sea life. A National Geographic film crew will be present to create a documentary about the expedition’s findings and Google Earth will track its progress with imagery and high-tech overlays.
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Study Shows How Meditation Benefits the Brain
Experienced meditators appear to have remarkably enhanced areas of their brains compared to people who don’t meditate.
These areas of the brain that were noted to be thickened are responsible for emotional control.
A study done by UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI) using MRI scans showed the regions, including the hippocampus and right frontal cortex, were larger in 44 individuals who meditated an average of 24 years.
“We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior,” said Eileen Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at LONI. “The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why meditators have these exceptional abilities.”
There have been many studies performed on the benefits of meditation, but less is known about the link between meditation and brain structure, which LONI works toward uncovering and measuring through scientific research.
“Because these areas of the brain are closely linked to emotion,” Luders said, “these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’ the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way.
“Because this was not a longitudinal study — which would have tracked meditators from the time they began meditating onward — it’s possible that the meditators already had more regional gray matter and volume in specific areas; that may have attracted them to meditation in the first place,” Luders said.
However, she also noted that numerous previous studies have pointed to the brain’s remarkable plasticity and how environmental enrichment has been shown to change brain structure.
Billion Tree Campaign Grows Past 3 Billion Mark, Says UN Agency
Earth News: An effort to fight climate change through reforestation, seeded at the grassroots level, has now blossomed into a woodland of over 3 billion trees, with the confirmation that over 300 million were planted in Turkey in 2008, the United Nations announced May 4, 2009. In response to its success, the Billion Tree Campaign, which is under the patronage of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Kenyan Green Belt Movement founder Professor Wangari Maathai and Prince Albert II of Monaco, has already set a new target of 7 billion trees to be planted by the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in December 2009.
The campaign was launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in 2006 as a response not only to the threat of global warming but also to wide sustainability challenges from water supplies to biodiversity loss.
Tree planting remains one of the most cost-effective ways to address climate change, according to UNEP. Trees and forests play a vital role in regulating the climate since they absorb carbon dioxide. Deforestation, in turn, accounts for over 20 per cent of the carbon dioxide humans generate, rivalling the emissions from other sources.
Trees also play a crucial role in providing a range of products and services to rural and urban populations, including food, timber, fibre, medicines and energy as well as soil fertility, water and biodiversity conservation.
Research Demonstrates the Healing Power of the Mind
According to Fabrizio Benedetti, Professor at the University of Turin Medical School in Italy, saline has been shown to control pain that was previously controlled by morphine. Only the patients believed they were still receiving morphine. In fact, it was unknowingly replaced with saline, yet their pain was still controlled in the same way.
When the patients received an agent, naloxone, that blocked the pain-killing effects of morphine while they were only receiving saline, their pain relief disappeared.
He’s also demonstrated the placebo phenomenon at work on Parkinson’s patients who received saline treatments instead of their usual Parkinson’s medication. Their tremors and muscle stiffness were reduced on the saline placebo, and the saline recipients’ brain neurons were seen in brain scans to react the same as with regularly prescribed medication.
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