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5.12.2009

Crop Circles -2009 Update- Nº 11

[Formation Nº 11 @ Roundway Hill - nr Devizes, Wiltshire - reported May 10, 2009]

Stephen Bassett on Fox News (Vid)


Stephen Bassett Paradigm Research Group
[PS: That's a nice, unbiased news-person...It's not his fault, really. His ass belongs to Rupert!]

[Stephen Basset will take part in the upcoming European Exopolitics Summit 2009; at Barcelona, Spain, on
July 25 & 26]
http://www.exopoliticstoronto.com/images/euroexosummit.jpg

Keny Arkana - 5ème soleil (VOSE)

In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html?_r=1&hpw
Europe Imagines Suburbs Without the Car
VAUBAN, Germany — Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars.
Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.
As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.
[...]
Besides, convincing people to give up their cars is often an uphill run. “People in the U.S. are incredibly suspicious of any idea where people are not going to own cars, or are going to own fewer,” said David Ceaser, co-founder of CarFree City USA, who said no car-free suburban project the size of Vauban had been successful in the United States.
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Are Mexicans genetically susceptible to H1N1 virus?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-05-11-genome_N.htm
http://olympus.cs.cmu.edu/showcase/images/GATTACA_LogoW.png
Although the findings are preliminary, a study released Monday raises the possibility that the H1N1 flu has been deadlier in Mexicans than in others because they are genetically more susceptible to the infection.[...or genetically targeted!]
The research, from Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine, found genetic variations in Mexican Mestizos — people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry who represent more than 80% of that country's population — that could affect their risk of diseases and their response to treatments.
The Human Genome Project, a global effort that identified all the genes in human chromosomes, found that any two individuals' genomes are 99% identical. Compared with the world's three main "ancestral" populations — Caucasian, African and Asian — the Mestizos had significant genetic differences, researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Beyond the current topic of influenza, we're experiencing huge increases in very complex diseases like diabetes," Julio Frenk, Mexico's health minister when the genomic medicine institute was created five years ago, said at a news conference.
The study involved anonymous blood samples from 330 unrelated Mexicans who described themselves as Mestizos and lived in seven Mexican states, three of which are the main source of immigrants to the USA, said lead author Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez, genomic medicine institute head.
[In other words: Welcome to the age of genetic discrimination!]
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Universities Are Being Turned Into Corporate Research Departments

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/11/science-research-business
http://firgoa.usc.es/drupal/files/images/Corporate%20University_0.GIFhttp://www.edweek.org/media/2008/10/03/07boaler.jpg
Why is the Medical Research Council run by an arms manufacturer? Why is the Natural Environment Research Council run by the head of a construction company? Why is the chairman of a real estate firm in charge of higher education funding for England?
Because our[Not only in the UK] universities are being turned into corporate research departments. No longer may they pursue knowledge for its own sake: the highest ambition to which they must aspire is finding better ways to make money.[!!!]
Last month, unremarked by the media, a quiet intellectual revolution took place. The research councils, which provide 90% of the funding for acad­em­ic research, introduced a requirement for those seeking grants: they must describe the economic impact of the work they want to conduct. The councils define impact as the "demonstrable contribution" research can make to society and the economy. But how do you demonstrate the impact of blue skies research before it has been conducted?
The idea, the government says, is to transfer knowledge from the universities to industry, boosting the economy and helping to lift us out of recession. There's nothing wrong, in principle, with commercialising scientific discoveries. But imposing this condition on the pursuit of all knowledge does not enrich us; it impoverishes us, reducing the wonders of the universe to figures in an accountant's ledger.
Picture Charles Darwin trying to fill out his application form before embarking on the Beagle. "Explain how the research has the potential to impact on the nation's health, wealth or culture. For example: fostering global economic performance, and specifically the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom … What are the realistic time­scales for the benefits to be realised?" If Darwin had been dependent on a grant from a British research council, he would never have set sail.
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The Truth About Lying

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/12/psychology-lying-microexpressions-paul-ekman
http://www.fox40.com/common/medialib/image/125359.jpg
Forty years ago, the research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in training when he was asked a question whose answer has kept him busy pretty much ever since. Suppose, the group wanted to know, you are working in a psychiatric hospital like this one, and a patient who has previously attempted suicide comes to you. "I'm feeling much better now," the patient says. "Can I have a pass out for the weekend?"
You also know, of course, that psychiatric patients routinely make such claims, and that some, if they are granted temporary leave, will try to take their lives. But this particular patient swears they are telling the truth. They look, and sound, sincere. So here's the question: is there any way you can be sure they are telling the truth?
It set Ekman thinking. As part of his research, he had already recorded a series of 12-minute interviews with patients at the hospital. In a subsequent conversation, one of the patients told him that she had lied to him. So Ekman sat and looked at the film. Nothing. He slowed it down, and looked again. Slowed it further.
And suddenly, there, across just two frames, he saw it: a vivid, intense expression of extreme anguish. It lasted less than a 15th of a second. But once he had spotted the first expression, he soon found three more examples in that same interview. "And that," says Ekman, "was the discovery of microexpressions: very fast, intense expressions of concealed emotion."
Over the course of the next four decades, at the University of California's department of psychiatry in San Francisco, Ekman has successfully demonstrated a proposition first suggested by Charles Darwin: that the ways in which we express anger, disgust, contempt, fear, surprise, happiness and sadness are both innate and universal.
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Tomàs Pumarola: "Los virus nos modulan la vida"

http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=611673&idseccio_PK=1006&h=
 Foto:  NÚRIA PUENTES
--¿Estamos en manos de los virus?
--Virus y personas nos vamos modulando mutuamente la vida de forma constante. Ellos nos marcan pautas evolutivas y nosotros se las marcamos a ellos. De hecho, los virus estaban en la Tierra mucho antes de que apareciéramos los humanos y, muy probablemente, seguirán aquí cuando nosotros ya no existamos, porque son unos entes con una capacidad de adaptación tremenda. La historia de la humanidad ha avanzado a golpe de grandes epidemias infecciosas, víricas o bacterianas.
--¿Regulan la evolución humana?
--Han ido regulando la población del mundo, aunque no tienen esa función, como tampoco la tienen las guerras. Un ejemplo clarísimo de esto fue la caída del Imperio Romano. Estaba debilitado, pero en su hundimiento influyó de forma decisiva una epidemia de peste fortísima.
--¿Y ahora?
--Ahora estamos condicionados por el virus del sida y el de la gripe, entre otros. Nos marcan el comportamiento social y las relaciones personales. A diferencia de las bacterias, que las hay beneficiosas, los virus conocidos no aportan nada bueno.
--¿Hace un siglo eran distintos?
--No. Los virus siguen siendo los mismos. Somos nosotros los que los obligamos a cambiar de agresividad, a medida que entramos en sus áreas. O se transforman a través del movimiento de las poblaciones, que empezó con el comercio de esclavos y sigue imparable: virus que eran locales pasan a ser planetarios.
--¿Eso significa que cada vez habrá infecciones más complicadas?
--Es posible. El virus del sida es extraordinariamente complejo.
--¿Que es un virus?
--Un ente. En realidad, ni siquiera es un ser vivo. Es una estructura subcelular. Un ácido nucleico portador de una información que tiene como objetivo obligatorio entrar en una célula humana, instalarse allí y utilizar toda la maquinaria celular para nutrirse y multiplicarse. Eso, por supuesto, altera la vida de las células.
--¿Nos invaden y se quedan allí?
--No todos. Unos se eliminan una vez han causado una respuesta infecciosa, como el de la gripe. Otros, hacen lo mismo, pero se integran en nuestro genoma y permanecen allí, latentes, sin apenas dar síntomas. Unos terceros, se integran en el genoma y, además, no dejan de multiplicarse: el del sida. El VIH se aloja en la célula inmunitaria y va destruyendo las defensas de esa persona.
--¿Es habitual vivir con virus?
--Todos, usted y yo, llevamos dentro un montón de virus que adquirimos de niños. Hemos integrado en nuestro genoma el virus de la varicela --que si se reactiva da un herpes zóster--, el Epstein Barr --que se transmite por la saliva--, y otros. Esos virus se reactivan en situaciones de bajón inmunológico. Un 70% de la población española tiene un virus del herpes simple latente, pero solo algunos lo sufren. Son esas personas que, a veces, notan una pupa en el labio.
--¿Y no los eliminaría un antivirus?
--Un antivirus puede neutralizar a un virus pero, como vive gracias a los mecanismos de tus células, en realidad, lo que eliminas son las funciones de tu propio sistema celular. Los antivirus coartan la replicación del virus a cambio de una toxicidad enorme. Para que fueran algo efectivos, se tendrían que tomar en las primeras 48 horas tras el contagio.
--¿Cómo se transmiten los virus?
--Con la respiración --el de la gripe--, por vía sexual o sanguínea, o a través de un artrópodo que le hace de vector: mosquitos e insectos que son invadidos por virus y los transportan allá adónde van. Estos son un gran foco dispersor porque, con el cambio climático, los mosquitos van variando de continente. En España tenemos varios mosquitos vectores que pueden transmitir enfermedades si entran en contacto con una persona que los contagie a ellos. Es el caso del mosquito tigre.
--¿Es posible erradicarlos?
--Eso solo se ha conseguido con el de la viruela, porque variaba poco. La OMS pretendía haber erradicado el de la polio en el 2000. Sigue ahí.
--El de la gripe evoluciona a peor?
--El virus de la gripe ha demostrado desde hace un siglo que siempre cumple el mismo ciclo y con el mismo efecto: cada 30 o 40 años, aparece un nuevo virus que desplaza al anterior, causa una pandemia que dura dos o tres años y se estabiliza. Pasados otros 30 años, vuelve a empezar. Es más o menos igual de agresivo, pero repite su historia.
--¿Y porque se le teme tanto ahora?
--Porque hay incertidumbre. No sabemos cómo evolucionará.
--¿Podría seguir hasta el verano?
--En verano siempre hay gripe, pero poca. Ya se sabe que los virus no entienden ni respetan el cambio de estaciones, aunque con el frío viven mejor. La temperatura óptima de un virus de la gripe son los 33 grados, que es la que tenemos en el interior de nuestras narices en invierno.
[Fuente: elperiodico.com]

La televisión propicia relaciones interpersonales ilusorias

·A pesar de consolar, a largo plazo mina las habilidades sociales.
http://www.tendencias21.net/La-television-propicia-relaciones-interpersonales-ilusorias_a3204.html
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2008/0812/skimmer_tv_1202.jpg
Cuatro estudios realizados por dos universidades norteamericanas no dejan lugar a dudas: nuestros programas favoritos de televisión nos pueden consolar de la soledad o de tener baja autoestima. Sin embargo, este consuelo no debería llegar a sustituir nunca el esfuerzo por socializar ya que, según los expertos, darle la espalda a la familia o a los amigos por el consuelo de la televisión denota inadaptación y va minando los recursos sociales, a medida que pasa el tiempo. Esta conclusión concuerda con los resultados de otro estudio anterior basado en más de 30.000 personas, que no dejó lugar a dudas: los infelices ven más la televisión mientras que las personas felices son aquéllas socialmente más integradas.
Las relaciones ilusorias establecidas con los personajes o personalidades de los programas de televisión pueden proporcionar a las personas sentimientos de pertenencia o de integración social ilusorios, incluso en momentos de baja autoestima o tras haber sido rechazadas por amigos o familiares en la realidad.
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