American Buddhist Net

The word "porphyry" mysteriously shot through my head this morning the instant I woke up. I didn't know what it meant so I decided to look it up. Below is a link to the Wikipedia entry on porphyry, which I thought was pretty interesting. Robyn
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Porphyry is a variety of igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts. In its non-geologic, traditional use, the term "porphyry" refers to the purple-red form of this stone, valued for its appearance.

The term "porphyry" is from Greek and means "purple". Purple was the color of royalty, and the "Imperial Porphyry" was a deep brownish purple igneous rock with large crystals of plagioclase. This rock was prized for various monuments and building projects in Imperial Rome and later. Pliny's Natural History affirmed that the "Imperial Porphyry" had been discovered at an isolated site in Egypt in AD 18, by a Roman legionnaire named Caius Cominius Leugas (Werner 1998). It came from a single quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, from 600 million year old andesite of the Arabian-Nubian Shield.

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08/07/2008
Ari LeVaux

Chinese authorities may have shut down the dog restaurants in Beijing before the start of the Olympics, but I still scored a great piece of ass in Dunhuang, a city in western China. Stir-fried with carrots and peppers, the donkey flesh tasted like beef, only leaner.

I’m writing from Central Asia, smack in the middle of the world’s largest continent, and as far from the ocean as you can get. I’ve joined a group of Beijing-based astronomers that’s come west to watch the August 1 solar eclipse, the path of which passes near the village of Yiwu in Xinjiang, China’s most remote province.

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August 6, 2008

Nanjing (China) : Chinese archaeologists Wednesday opened a 1,000-year-old steel case that was believed to contain Buddhist relics.

A pagoda top wrapped in silk emerged after archaeologists removed two steel panels of the cube-shaped case, which is 0.5 metre long, 0.5 metre wide and 1.34 metres high.

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August 04 2008
By Dick Pelletier

Imagine living in an ageless, disease-free body with youthful looks, superhuman strength and a brain that can out-think computers. Now further imagine an affluent, happy, crime-free population residing in a world terraformed for comfort without dangerous storms, tsunamis, or unbearable weather.

This is the vision many forward-thinkers believe humanity can achieve during this century. Although life seems to rush by at rocket speeds today, the future will advance even faster. Author James John Bell, in his Exploring the Singularity article in The Futurist says, “We won’t just experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century – it will be more like 20,000 years.”

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PRINCETON, N.J., Aug. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have determined every type of cancer contains unique gene mutations that give it Darwin's "survival of the fittest" advantage.

The researchers from Princeton University and the University of California-San Francisco said they discovered the underlying process in tumor formation is the same as for life itself: evolution.

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By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Phoenix Mars Lander may have detected perchlorate, a potentially toxic substance used in rocket fuel, in soil samples taken from the Red Planet, NASA scientists said on Monday.

The space agency said further tests were required to confirm the presence of perchlorate in Martian dirt and rule out contamination from the spacecraft.

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This is an excellent source of information on anthrax and the recent Ivins case. ABN
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Aug 1, 2008
By Craig Covault

The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Sources say the new data do not indicate the discovery of existing or past life on Mars. Rather the data relate to habitability--the "potential" for Mars to support life--at the Phoenix arctic landing site, sources say.

The data are much more complex than results related NASA's July 31 announcement that Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water ice at the site.

International news media trumpeted the water ice confirmation, which was not a surprise to any of the Phoenix researchers. "They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water ice announcement.

The other data not discussed openly yet are far more "provocative," Phoenix officials say.

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By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 8:19 AM on 01st August 2008

He is 8ft tall and has a roar that could start an avalanche.

Despite this, the yeti has always managed to remain abominably elusive.

But yesterday, claims that the legendary beast really does exist took a giant step forward.

Scientists have used microscopes to analyse of strands of hair found caught on some rocks in jungle near the India-Bangladesh border.

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By Alexis Madrigal EmailJuly 31, 2008

A new catalyst makes it feasible to split water with solar power.

MIT chemists say the catalyst, used in conjunction with cheap photovoltaic solar panels, could lead to inexpensive, simple systems that use water to store the energy from sunlight.

In the process, the scientists may have cleared the major roadblock on the long road to fossil fuel independence: Reducing the on-again, off-again nature of many renewable power sources.

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APINYA WIPATAYOTIN

Thailand will host the world's first international meeting on fireflies with over 200 firefly experts from 20 countries taking part to discuss the latest findings on the lightning bugs. The International Symposium on Diversity and Conservation of Fireflies will be held at the Botanical Garden Organisation in Chiang Mai from Aug 26-30.

Suyanee Vessbutr, chief of the organisation's technical and research department, said the symposium was a follow-up of a meeting of firefly experts from around the world in Portugal last year.

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By LARA JAKES JORDAN and DAVID DISHNEAU – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

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July 30, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Stratfor Terrorism Intelligence Report

Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant and that the U.S. government knows its terrorist enemies have sought to use biological agents as instruments of warfare.

Runge also said that the United States believes that capability is within the terrorists’ reach. Runge gave his testimony before a subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology that was holding a field hearing in Providence, R.I., to discuss the topic of “Emerging Biological Threats and Public Health Preparedness.”

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July 30, 2008

Using newly developed voltage-sensitive nanoparticles, researchers have found that the previously unknown electric fields inside of cells are as strong, or stronger, as those produced in lightning bolts. Previously, it has only been possible to measure electric fields across cell membranes, not within the main bulk of cells, so scientists didn't even know cells had an internal electric field.

This discovery is a surprising twist for cell researchers. Scientists don't know what causes these incredibly strong fields or why they' are there.

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I'd be more interested in the genetic factors that predispose humans to MENTAL sloth. I can go out and walk 10 miles at a brisk pace, no problem. But I can't bring myself to meditate earnestly for a measly half-hour straight. Jeesh, some Buddhist I am. Robyn
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Wednesday, Jul. 30, 2008
By DEIRDRE VAN DYK

Have you ever wondered why you can't get off the couch and exercise — despite paying for an expensive gym membership, despite your New Year's resolutions, even despite the doctor's scolding at your last check-up? Turns out that your inertia may be coded right into your genes.

Based on some intriguing, preliminary studies in animals, J. Timothy Lightfoot, a kinesiologist, and his team at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, suggest that genetics may indeed predispose some of us for sloth. Using mice specially bred and selected according to their activity levels, Lightfoot identified 20 different genomic locations that work in tandem to influence activity levels in mice — specifically, how far the animals will run. Lightfoot's team is the first to identify these genetic areas, and the first to figure out that they function in concert...

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Is it not time to stop adding "disgraced" to Hwang's name every time he makes the news? He paid the price. That event is over. ABN
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07-28-2008

South Korea's Buddhist monks have urged the government to allow disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk to continue his stem cell research.

"It is deplorable that research by Hwang Woo-suk and his team is suppressed unreasonably," the monks said in a resolution. "The government should approve the research in order to save a greater soul."

The resolution came ahead of the Health Ministry's decision Saturday over whether to approve Hwang's request to restart his work.

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Several experts on the media and risk said that one result could be public disengagement with the climate issue just as experts are saying ever more forcefully that sustained attention and action are needed to limit the worst risks.

Ethical Issues in Funding for Adaptation in Countries Vulnerable to Climate Change; the Example of Bhutan

23 July 2008

We are a little late to the party, but it is worth adding a few words now that our favourite amateur contrarian is at it again. As many already know, the Forum on Physics and Society (an un-peer-reviewed newsletter published by the otherwise quite sensible American Physical Society), rather surprisingly published a new paper by Monckton that tries again to show using rigorous arithmetic that IPCC is all wrong and that climate sensitivity is negligible. His latest sally, like his previous attempt, is full of the usual obfuscating sleight of hand, but to save people the time in working it out themselves, here are a few highlights.

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Mon Jul 28, 2008

SUKHUMI, Georgia (Reuters) - In the capital of Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia, cracked steps lead up to a battered 1970s monument featuring a baboon.

"Polio, yellow fever, typhus, encephalitis, smallpox, hepatitis and many other human diseases were eradicated thanks to tests on primates," the inscription reads.

Once the pride of Soviet science, Sukhumi's Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy is now a shadow of the pioneering centre that helped defeat polio and saved countless thousands of lives in World War Two with penicillin treatments.

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Monday, July 28, 2008

LONDON - A British scientist said Monday he was anxiously awaiting the results of DNA tests on hair claimed to be from a yeti after initial examinations showed it had human and ape-like characteristics.

Ian Redmond, a biologist and expert in ape conservation, said the hairs found in the Indian jungle resembled samples collected by the conqueror of Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, in the 1950s.

"Under the microscope, they look slightly human, slightly like an orangutan and slightly like the hairs brought back by Edmund Hillary," Redmond told AFP.

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Mon, Jul. 28, 2008

Earth, the Sun and the Moon will align in a celestial ballet on Friday, rewarding China, where the first record of an eclipse was made more than 4,000 years ago, with a dazzling show. Longingly awaited, the first total solar eclipse since March 2006 kicks off at 0923 GMT, when the lunar shadow touches down on the fringes of Nunavut province in northern Canada.

The dark, narrow disc, known as the umbra, then races across the roof of the world before alighting in northern Siberia, where it will skip across central Russia and central Asia and head into Mongolia and northwestern China.

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By Neal Grossman
When researchers ask the question, "How can the near-death experience be explained?" they tend to make the usual assumption that an acceptable explanation will be in terms of concepts—biological, neurological, psychological—with which they are already familiar. The near-death experience (NDE) would then be explained, for example, if it could be shown what brain state, which drugs, or what beliefs on the part of the experiencer correlate with the NDE. Those who have concluded that the NDE cannot be explained mean that it cannot be, or has not yet been, correlated with any physical or psychological condition of the experiencer.

I wish to suggest that this approach to explaining the NDE is fundamentally misguided. To my knowledge, no one who has had an NDE feels any need for an explanation in the reductionist sense that researchers are seeking. For the experiencer, the NDE does not need to be explained because it is exactly what it purports to be, which is, at a minimum, the direct experience of consciousness—or minds, or selves, or personal identity—existing independently of the physical body. It is only with respect to our deeply entrenched materialist paradigm that the NDE needs to be explained, or more accurately, explained away. In this article, I will take the position that materialism has been shown to be empirically false; and hence, what does need to be explained is the academic establishment's collective refusal to examine the evidence and to see it for what it is. The academic establishment is in the same position today as the bishop who refused to look through Galileo's telescope. Why is this the case?

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By Ian Evans
Last updated at 1:26 AM on 26th July 2008

A plant that can detect landmines has been developed by scientists.

The genetically-modified tobacco plant has a gene that triggers a red plant pigment found in tomatoes and apples.

When the roots detect nitrogen oxide which leaks from landmines, the green leaves turn red about ten weeks.

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7/27/2008

Watching a crystal of bismuth metal in a powerful magnetic field, researchers discover new states of electrons that behave like light

..."This is exciting because this was predicted but never shown before, and it may eventually lead to new paradigms in computing and electronics,"said Thomas Rieker, NSF program director for materials research center.

With this work, the theory of electrodynamics suggests a rich landscape of electronic states of semiconductors, and the Princeton researchers are continuing their adventure. Someday, these newly discovered electronic states of matter may enable powerful new electronic devices that exploit the principles of quantum mechanics to compute and communicate. For now we can marvel at the subtle beauty of nature that lives in a universe of electrons that lies beneath the shiny skin of a metal crystal.

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