Monthly Archives: May 2005

Not so Dumbo – elephant intelligence

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Should elephants be moved to near the top of the animal-intelligence list.

Communication and understanding

For the first time, remote-control cameras disguised as dung-heaps have infiltrated African elephant herds. Moving slowly across the plains, the ‘dungcams’ have shot hundreds of hours of elephant footage of the most intimate variety. On watching the footage, you start to believe that elephants may indeed be as intelligent as the great apes. “The communication and understanding is so evident when you get inside the herd,” says film-maker John Downer. “I know of no other species, apart from ourselves, who gather to greet a newborn and equally appear to mourn their dead relatives.”

BBC

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Drug For Longer Sex Actually Works!

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A drug for premature ejaculation could soon be on the US market and the subject of worldwide spam after successful trials.

According to a report, the drug, dapoxetine hydrochloride, can lengthen the duration of intercourse by three to four times.

“The results with dapoxetine are compelling,” says Jon Pryor of the University of Minnesota, lead investigator of dapoxetine phase III clinical trials. “They demonstrate that, for the first time, a medicine can be taken by men on an on-demand basis and provide significant improvement in their premature ejaculation condition.”

Betterhumans

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IMF and World Bank: Out of Control

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THE International Monetary Fund and World Bank are institutions out of control.

For evidence, consider the institutions’ feeble and fatally flawed debt relief program. Under their Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, the world’s poorest countries can receive reduction of approximately one third of their current payments to overseas creditors—if they endure six years of closely monitored, extremely intrusive “structural adjustment.”

Structural adjustment is the policy package that includes such measures as indiscriminate privatization, labor market deregulation, government spending cuts, trade and financial liberalization, economic deregulation, an emphasis on exports and charges (“user fees”) for people to attend clinics for basic healthcare.

Journy To Forever

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Nanoscale light tricks promise huge DVD storage

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A patent issued to Iomega describes a disc that could store almost a terabyte of data—40 to 100 times more information than a conventional DVD.

Iomega’s proposed Articulated Optical Digital Versatile Disc (AO-DVD) technology would use sub-wavelength surface bumps that slope at slightly different angles. This could be used to encode up to 100 times more information. The angles would be detected by analyzing light after it had bounced off several ridges—calculating which combination of slopes would have produced the result.

Iomega claims the technique could also improve data transfer rates by a factor of 30.

NewScientist

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CIA Overseeing 3-Day War Game on Internet

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The CIA is conducting a secretive war game, dubbed “Silent Horizon,” this week to practice defending against an electronic assault on the same scale as the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks.

The three-day exercise, ending Thursday, was meant to test the ability of government and industry to respond to escalating Internet disruptions over many months.

Yahoo!

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Violence may be a ‘socially infectious disease’

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Witnessing gun violence can double the likelihood of a teenager committing serious violence in the following two years, suggests a new study by US researchers.

Although a connection between exposure to violence and violent behaviour has been previously suggested, it is difficult to show a direct causal link. But this study claims to have isolated the independent contribution made by actually witnessing gun violence by comparing over 1500 teenagers with a similar likelihood of being exposed to violence.

?Based on this study?s results, showing the importance of personal contact with violence, the best model for violence may be that of a socially infectious disease,? says Felton Earls, at Harvard Medical School, US, who led the study. ?Preventing one violent crime may prevent a downstream cascade of ?infections?.?

NewScientist

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Highlife Theory by Tony Bondhus

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The Gaia Hypothesis showed the entire Earth as one large living organism, but failed to show it as an intelligent organism. Highlife Theory shows it as an extremely intelligent organism.

I remember watching “Batteries not Included” several years ago. The movie, was about two little saucer shaped flying robot like life forms. They were about six inches in diameter and looked like cute little toys. They were electromechanical like a robot, but they were alive. In one fascinating scene the camera looked inside one of them and showed hundreds of microscopic robots each performing the delicate tasks of life.

This intrigued me because if you look at a higher life form like people for example, you’ll find that we too are made up of billions of lower life forms. Each individual cell is capable of surviving and reproducing on its own with the proper environment. Each cell is identical in program yet an individual differing in every way from its neighboring cells. In much the same way, people are almost identical in design and programming of the mind and body. Yet all are individuals, forming their own opinions and doing their own thing.

This is a basic principle of life. Lower life forms coming together in a group for survival reasons and forming a higher life form.

Highlife Theory – Part 1 – Examining the Possibility of Life on Earth
Highlife Theory – Part 2 – A New Look at Evolution
Highlife Theory – Part 3 – The Meaning of Life
Highlife Theory – Part 4 – The Connection
Highlife Theory – Part 5 – Communal Thinking
Highlife Theory – Part 6 – Amplified Intelligence

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2nd Annual Against The Wal March

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7666.jpgSince last summer’s shareholders convention which was met with Arkansas’s first anti-Walmart Protest, Walmart has made little progress toward changing practices which have upset the whole world. From sweatshop exploitation and environmental destruction, to union busting and corporate welfare Walmart has not made any changes toward being more responsible, except with slick PR campaigns and chump change donations to the United Way.

So, the Against The Wal Coalition is once again mobilizing to bring the people?s voice to the Beast of Bentonville?s shareholders. On Thursday June 2nd we will march through downtown Fayetteville during happy hour as shareholders from around the world sip cocktails and slap each other on the back. Then join us at 6am in front of the Bud Walton Arena Friday morning for a good-ol? fashioned picket of the actual convention.

Last summer people came from Canada, New York, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Hope to see you in the Ozarks this summer.

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Microsoft’s Share of Browser Market Slips

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Microsoft Corp.’s share of the U.S. browser market has slipped below 90 percent as the Firefox browser continues to grow in popularity, according to independent tracking by WebSideStory.

Firefox, an open-source browser collectively developed by the Internet community under the Mozilla Foundation, had a 6.8 percent share as of April 29, an increase from 3.0 percent since WebSideStory began tracking Firefox separately in October.

Yahoo

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Mastering The Gut Feeling

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University of Texas at El Paso Professor Weston Agor, director of that college?s public administration program, developed an intuition test that he submitted to 10,000 corporate executives. Based on the results, Agor concluded that ?without exception top managers rated significantly higher than middle-level or lower-level managers in their ability to use intuition on the job to make decisions.?

Other findings from Agor?s survey support the research evidence generated by precognitive dream experiments that show how belief and emotional openness tend to multiply and intensify the phenomenon?s effects. ?Intuition becomes more efficient as we become more open to our feelings and more secure through experience in its ability to provide the correct cues,? Agor declared. ?The first rule is to believe it. The second rule is that practice makes perfect. The third rule is create a supportive environment in which intuitive skills are valued.?

By undertaking a yoga practice, I discovered that my body became more sensitive to the physical symptoms of intuition. My intention in undertaking yoga had been to develop flexibility, balance, and strength in both body and mind so I wasn?t ?living in my head? so much of the time…

Phenomena Zine

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