News on the March-Baboons make words

In 300,000 tests, the six baboons distinguished between real and fake words about three-out-of-four times, according to the study published in Thursday’s journal Science.
In finding the letters in words and the relations between these letters – they are capitalising on a pre-existing ability to identify everyday objects, which we share with non-human primates. Man learned to read in the Fertile golden Crescent in the Middle East some 5000 years ago and it is in evolutionary timescale,a bleep. It must be instinctive and is a specific area behind the left ear.
The baboons, however, are only spotting sequences of letters so they can get fed. They don’t actually understand what the words mean.
“The baboons use information about letters and the relations between letters in order to perform our task… This is based on a very basic ability to identify everyday objects in the environment,” Dr. John Grainger at the Aix-Marseille University told BBC Nature.
Researchers in France discovered our hairy genetic cousins can recognize hundreds of four-letter words on a computer screen, and they can tell a real word apart from a nonsense jumble of letters. The key is that these animals not only learned by trial and error which letter combinations were correct, but they also noticed which letters tend to go together to form real words, such as SH but not FX, said Grainger. So even when new words were sprung on them, they did a better job at figuring out which were real.
Trees can communicate with man. Only that it is in the way these convert into oxygen from the amount of carbon dioxide that we exhale. Non verbal, verbal chemical communications are part of interactive world of which we barely understand.
benny

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Well of Time: Here or There?-4

If We aren’t Here We are There

In quantum physics no two fermions may occupy the same quantum state.
A little background information may be needed here. An atom has three types of particles protons,electrons and neutrons. The exclusion principle by Pauli will assign electrons under heightened energy states exclusion zones. In short electrons cannot all congregate as before. Consequently these will occupy higher energy states than those in the lower energy states. It causes atoms to take up spaces and not positions as we understand the term. What is the quality of space, which keeps fermions from one another must be consistent in the physical universe? Exclusion principle can give it room anywhere in the infinite space. Remember the frustum of the cone in the Golden Pagoda? When Prophet Isaiah speaks about being taken in spirit before the throne of God(Is. 6:1-5) think how it is possible according to the spirit of Science. (By the way I see no difficulty with Science in my belief of God.)
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Law of Entropy points to the tendency of large numbers of molecules of atoms left to itself to loosen up. It shows a lapse of time. Thus a luscious apple in course of time loses its shape, color and also taste. It is not a fruit anymore that you can bite into but has become mush. (It marks passage of time, mind you.) Now what we need to ask ourselves is this: how can an atom tend to disorder? No single atom can be in a state of entropy. It is timeless.
Our bodies, I mean their physical forms, are made up of atoms and our brains inefficient as they are, in a manner of speaking are, like phytoplankton in a sea of electro-chemical impulses. We are swallowed up by whales of Eternity. So what?
Timelessness of subatomic particles create a zone for our mind. Death is a low energy state and we being charged with higher state of life can only occupy another state. If we are not here we are there.
Our bodies take that low energy state called Death. According to law of entropy each molecule must part company from one another. What of our thoughts that caught fire? These electrical impulses I call divine fire since I chose to show some characteristics I associate with God. Love, compassion, fairness patience etc. (Thoughts spliced with action and emotions are three strand rope not easily broken. I got my metaphors mixed here!) According to exclusion principle these are before God.
benny

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Well of Time- working of brain-3

Brain carries on cell to cell communication and for which they depend on specialized neuron nerve cells. These are responsible for communicating information in both chemical and electrical forms. There are also several different types of neurons responsible for different tasks in the human body.
The property that makes neurons unique is their ability to send signals to specific target cells over long distances. They send these signals by means of an axon, which is a thin protoplasmic fiber that extends from the cell body and projects, usually with numerous branches, to other areas, sometimes nearby, sometimes in distant parts of the brain or body.

Axons transmit signals to other neurons by means of specialized junctions called synapses. The essential function of the brain as mentioned before is cell-to-cell communication, and synapses are the points at which communication occurs. The human brain has been estimated to contain approximately 100 trillion synapses. (Even the brain of a fruit fly contains several million.) The functions of these synapses are very diverse: some excite the cells that are to carry messages forward or inhibit them. Like forbidden desires that make themselves felt are checked by the conscious mind, these cells as a matter of course are screened at synapses.
An important point to remember is that synapses can get from the bulk of messages the trend of thinking that goes on. Thus one makes a habit of creative activities will find synapses an ally. In short those who want to achieve naturalness in their responses to the world need to make them accustomed to their natural inclinations. A pianist who trains often naturally tends to play naturally and better.
It is widely believed that activity-dependent modification of synapses is the brain’s primary mechanism for learning and memory.

A single axon may make as many as several thousand synaptic connections with other cells.When an action potential, traveling along an axon, arrives at a synapse, it causes a chemical called a neurotransmitter to be released. The neurotransmitter binds to receptor molecules in the membrane of the target cell. Schizophrenia patients suffer from disjointed thoughts and actions on account of inability in neurotransmitter.
In short much of our vaunted progress or the perverseness to let injustice and inequality rampant owe to electrical and chemical impulses that permeate the universe. If you probe deep down what are we but flashes and molecules reality of which lay in another dimension altogether.
Since I shall come to that in subsequent posts let me say that at quantum level we are timeless. The world that we made are from rational thoughts and if looks so strange and irrational we only need to conclude we relied on the medium of brain, disproportionate to its true nature. Brain can only do so much and no more. We have been deceived by our own cleverness.
benny

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Transfer Factor-Human case

The American Heritage dictionary defines gene pool as thus: The collective genetic information contained within a population of sexually reproducing organisms.
In terms of human genetic make up we can understand that experience of our ancestors is passed forward and it is something like a safety-line thrown across passage of time. This support is achieved within species and not from species to another.
Nine-tenths of our genes are identical to that of a mouse. It doesn’t tell much. Neither would this: sixty percent of DNA found in the humans is also found in a banana. Where lies the mystery then?
DNA in a molecule is a genetic universe. A difference of .1 in a molecule would make some 3 million genetic differences. From such numbers Nature can give a mouse its own uniqueness as a man.
Yet Nature underwrites wellbeing of life forms on a standard that allows borrowing from species to species and from person to person.
That gene which makes a jellyfish glow can be implanted in another living thing to study its stress level.
We have organ donor programs by which organs from the brain dead can be used to replace the organs diseased and give new lease of life to the living. Like tissue match between persons so grafting a part of healthy skin onto replace the damaged skin by burns in another faulty heart valves of man can be replaced from animals as well. It would seem then for such procedures to succeed there must be a common ground?
Transfer factor is where a particular protein has the ability to recognize a disease and activate body’s immune system. So it will not catch it a second time. In Transfer factor we see how this immunity can be passed from person to another.

Outbreak of AIDS epidemic has been the scrouge of the present century. Yet is has a chilling parallel to the waves of Black Death that devastated Europe earlier. The strange case of Steve Crohn from California attests to the timelessness of experience. His lover Jerry succumbed to the epidemic and died on March 4,1982. He was the fourth victim to die of AIDS. Steve however remained immune to it, which seemed curious to the scientists. Steve’s blood carried HIV virus, 3000 times more than needed to infect a healthy cell and yet he remained healthy. Something was blocking the virus from getting in. He had a blocking system identified as Delta 32. It was traced out to his ancestry. His European ancestors carried this mutant gene as a result of the Black Death and they had brought it to the New World. Like Steve there are 1% of people in U.K and the U.S.A, carrying the gene.
In terms of use and experience transfer factor would indicate a long range view of things is Nature’s game plan. Old Medieval idea of God sending Attila the Hun as a scourge for persecuting Christians is not borne by facts. Rome had it coming and it took slow in maturing and from many chain of events connecting the fall of Rome was that of a power structure that could not handle a vast empire. But the excellence of Imperial Rome, its Law, literature, art, technology will travel further under many guises. Civic Architecture of Washington. DC is a telling example.
Imperial Rome riding the baggage train of other world powers was nothing new. But for Hellenism that Alexander the Great centered around Egypt (Alexandria) Syria,Persia and Macedon ancient Greece would not had such an impact on the West. . Rome in her ascendancy borrowed Greek ideals as her own. Just as Greece did in her days.
Archaeological evidences show assimilation of influences from Syro- Hittite, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures. The Archaic Greece came into focus with the sudden end of the Mycenaean culture. Cosmos as one will make both human excellence and evil go under many guises according the necessities of the age and change shapes. Thus if war did glorify might of kingdoms and added prestige to the bandit-kings who led the plunder it would another time will be waged for ‘the king and country’.

benny

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Chicken or Egg?

Which came first? Chicken or egg?
In order to answer it as intelligently as I can allow me to mention the simple process of chicken laying eggs. Eggs cannot be hard within a chicken any more than a baby can come out of its mother’s uterus with its brain fully developed. Let me digress a little.
The greatest engineering skill, name it Positive Intelligence if you will, designed the process of child-birth to protect the baby as well as its mother. Thus the design has foreseen interests of both. It sees these as one. It will require six years for the brain of the child to fully develop that gives the mother to nurse the baby so nature (derived from both parents) has time to be impressed.
Let me come back to my main topic. A gamete* is a cell that fuses with another cell during fertilization and it is located in a chicken on the yolk surface and surrounded by albumen, or egg white. The albumen in turn is surrounded by two shell membranes (inner and outer membranes and then the eggshell. The chicken eggshell is 95-97% calcium carbonate crystals.The structure and composition of the chicken eggshell ( required for protecting the egg against damage and microbial contamination) is stabilized by a protein matrix. The shell becomes hard only as it is laid so as to falicitate its passage through the isthmus of the oviduct.
The importance of locating elusive Higgs boson is that it hints at a field permeating the Universe – the Higgs field by which particles to obtain their mass. Interactions with the field – with the Higgs bosons that come from it – are purported to give particles mass. If found true it must demonstrate that Positive Intelligence works out mass for our material world with the same attention to chicken’s laying eggs. Chicken and eggs were both coexistent in that Mind. Compare my post On Second Thoughts: female of the species. He created male and female as one.

*The name gamete was introduced by the Austrian biologist Gregor Mendel. Gametes carry half the genetic information of an individual, 1n of each type.
benny

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Missing Link-God

Missing Link-God

How did our universe come into being? Material aspect of it has been balanced on ideas proposed by man so to speak. So many disciplines each setting out a piece to form a giant jigsaw puzzle. All these pieces must make one coherent whole.
In another analogy man like Archimedes could be looking for the lever to lift the How and Why of man and his universe. Is it Higgs boson particle? The Higgs mechanism proposes that there is a field permeating the Universe – the Higgs field – that allows particles to obtain their mass. Interactions with the field – with the Higgs bosons that come from it are purported to give particles mass. But is it God?
Without mass particles are like straws in wind and mass makes our earth run on a predictable orbit and have a gravitational field and so on.
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Life on the earth gives the earth an identifiable form since man’s ideas have laid bare the warp and woof of our known universe to great extent. It is ethnocentric since man is naming things. It gives certain semblance of truth. We speak here of truth in its broadest sense.
Consider this : with so many life forms species after species Science could study fossils and give it a time tag and arrange their evoltutionary path. From available evidences when we speak of evolution as the basis that life originated gradually. It is what anyone with an opn mind can accept as most likely nearer to truth. Charles Darwin made it his life work and despite of many vicissitudes that life often crowns persons that preserve after truth, -he suffered from Chagga’s disease as a result of his sea voyages to South America. Yet he did an yeoman service to the world at large. He was a pioneer and his work since then has attracted many scientists all across the world and their work a testimony to man’s need to know truth. They have dedicated their lives in order to throw further light into secrets of Nature in evolutionary biology.
The idea of Natural selection is one among many facets grounded on truth. Science has no interest to explore what reason cannot grasp. Thus we know How we have come this far. How is only one part of the puzzle of our existence. Why we are here?
Such a conundrum is not teased out of rational mind as some grist to the mental mill. (Science cannot work on faith alone in vacuum.) Those who sought to unravel the How are seekers of truth. What made some dedicate their lives not for silver or gold mind you, but something that give meaning to their lives. St. Francis of Assissi, the son of a rich merchant of Pisa could have served the poor without disavowing his wealth or connections. But he made himself poor to serve the poor. In his eye he settled for a life of utmost simplicity as Baruch Spinoza did. One did as service to God while the latter did for no other reason than serving truth. God, Truth are all terms that stand far beyond human understanding. Spinoza did not care to publish his works in his lifetime since fame or riches were not his goal. He had to give his physical life, a frail life at that, some semblance of truth as well as he knew. Most of those who have impacted the world have nearly counted everything besides truth as impediment in their search. How is part of truth as Why is equally an integral part.
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It is in this context we need to look at the search for Higgs boson as a milestone in our understanding of ourselves and the universe.
There is a Standard Model by which we have nearly explained how the Universe works – all of the particles that make up atoms and molecules and all the matter we see, along with more exotic particles. However, there is a glaring hole in the theory: it does not explain how it is that all those particles have mass. The Higgs mechanism was proposed in 1964 by six physicists, including the Edinburgh-based theoretician Peter Higgs, as an explanation to fill this hole. It is the only predicted elementary particle that has not yet been observed in particle physics experiments. Theories that do not need the Higgs boson also exist and would be considered if the existence of the Higgs Boson were ruled out. They are described as Higgsless models.
The crux of my post is that man has levered his universe on his rational mind. It has uncovered How which only requires the elusive Higgs boson that is what supplies mass. Positive Intelligence or God that supplies Why may go a long to speed up our knowledge.
Caveat:
Even though How and Why are found and consequently set into human language we need to realize we are transposing Truth Absolute in human terms.
benny

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Uncertainty Principle

In Jonathan Swift’s immortal tale the central character Gulliver is brought to the land of Brobdingnag. It is written that he was repelled by the women of that land. They were monstrous in size compared to him. Their faces when magnified so much skin pores seemed to his scrutiny as moon craters! Matter of size brought about this change naturally. If we were to see as an eagle our eyes would require the size of an orange. To sum view of our world is limited by our human-ness. As a result our sense of beauty is affected; so must our understanding.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to know both the exact position and the exact velocity of an object at the same time. However, the effect is tiny and so is only noticeable on a subatomic scale.
Light can be considered as being made up of packets of energy called photons. To measure the position and velocity of any particle, you would first shine a light on it, then detect the reflection. On a macroscopic scale, the effect of photons on an object is insignificant. Unfortunately, on subatomic scales, the photons that hit the subatomic particle will cause it to move significantly, so although the position has been measured accurately, the velocity of the particle will have been altered. By learning the position, you have rendered any information you previously had on the velocity useless. In other words, the observer affects the observed.
Here also we see the size affects our perception. Our visible universe has a set of rules while at the sub-atomic level another set of rules is equally admissible! In human terms it may explain we all have our pubic persona that is dusted up version of our real selves. Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde is an extreme case.
No wonder we require an uncertainty principle to underpin our finite nature. We cannot say for certain which Party shall win the 2012 USA elections. History constantly points to this principle running through the events and men.
benny

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On Second Thoughts: female of the species

Basic template for the human body and brain is female.
We all start out as girls and around six to eight weeks since conception a fetus with XY develop normally into a boy: in order to do that its special cells will direct male hormones in particular testosterone, to other parts of the body to form male testes and configure the brain for masculine traits and behavior.
The Bible is clear about this: He created them male and female. But how come she has become weak vessal and a baggage subject to man’s laws? Our laws are all calculated to make her look second class. Religions also have reinterpreted the divine Will to keep her under man’s control. Recently some one in Saudi Arabia came up with a new revelation: women who are allowed to drive cars are in danger of pre-marital sex!
Religion from the manner has treated woman seems to follow this point: God proposes Prophet disposes.

benny

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The Age of New Physics

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile (27 km) circular particle accelerator underground near Geneva, Switzerland, have been colliding protons at high speeds to create explosions of energy. From this energy many subatomic particles are produced.
The seemingly inescapable fact that matter and antimatter particles destroy each other on contact has long puzzled physicists wondering how life, the universe or anything else can exist at all. But new results from a particle accelerator experiment suggest that matter does seem to win in the end.
The experiment has shown a small — but significant — 1 percent difference between the amount of matter and antimatter produced, which could hint at how our matter-dominated existence came about.
Specifically, physicists discovered a 1 percent difference between pairs of muons and antimuons that arise from the decay of particles known as B mesons.
The results, announced Tuesday month of May 2011, came from analyzing eight years worth of data from the Tevatron collider at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. The Tevatron collider and its bigger cousin, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, have shed some light on this.
This may be the age of new physics.
Scientists think the universe started off with roughly equal amounts of matter and antimatter. (Particles of antimatter have the same mass of their twins but an opposite charge.) Somehow over the ensuing 14 billion years, most of the antimatter was destroyed, leaving a leftover universe of mainly matter.
One potential explanation for this outcome is called “charge-parity violation.” CP violation means that particles of opposite charge behave differently from one another. It can be explained in the asymmetry of face. For instance if we double the left half of the face to reconstruct the face the photograph will throw a surprise. We have accepted the asymmetry in our stride not reckoning there are subtle variations to the two halves. (But doubling one part makes the asymmetry too obvious to miss.) CP violation of our visual identity can be proven. Consequently of matter as well. )
The LHCb researchers found preliminary evidence that this is happening when particles called D-mesons, which contain “charmed quarks,” decay into other particles. The whimsically named charmed quarks, like many exotic particles, are so unstable, they last only a fraction of a second. They quickly decay into other particles, and it is these products that the experiment detects. (“LHCb” is short for LHC-beauty, another flavor of quark.)
From the experiment, the researchers found a 0.8 percent difference in the probabilities that the matter and antimatter versions of these particles would decay into a particular end state.
The reigning theory of particle physics, called the Standard Model, is incomplete. Currently the Standard Model does allow for some minor CP violation, but not at the level of 0.8 percent. To explain these results, scientists would have to alter their theory or add some new physics to the existing picture.
Such slight differences we see all through our visible universe. The slight tilt of the earth gives us seasons and if it should lead to a oceanic conveyor belt where one half of the loop is warm while the other carries cold currents we may be sure the supersymmetry of matter is a myth. Matter and antimatter version of subatomic particles decay differently and keep history of mankind thrive. Gulf streams that gave the west a headstart over Asia or Africa is not permanent and are subject to certain conditions.
(Ack: Why We Exist-Matter Wins Battle Over Antimatter -May 18 SPACE.com;Is the New Physics Here? Atom Smashers Get an Antimatter Surprise-LiveScience.org/ Clara Moskowitz/18Nov.11)
benny

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On Progress, Missing Mass and Pure Research

The dream of flight was fueled by man’s observation of the birds, and is illustrated in myths across the world (e.g. Daedalus and Icarus in Greek mythology, or the Pushpaka Vimana of the Ramayana). The first attempts to fly also often drew on the idea of imitating birds, as in Daedalus’ building his wings out of feathers and wax. Leonardo da Vinci’s design was limited since it relied on pedal power. Attempts to build wings of various materials and jump off high towers continued well until the seventeenth century. ( aviation history-ack:wikipedia). In the wake of Industrial revolution it was inevitable the application of machines became as important as man’s imagination.
The dynamics of this alliance between man and machine would change. The fanciful world of alchemists would give way to hard-nosed scientists,- and science and not humanities became the hi-octane fuel driving progress. It also forged a link with Technology as the benchmark for human progress. The effect of art and humanities on human mind I guess was not so much visible as of technology for the world to go some direction. This partnership between Science and technology if logically taken to its conclusion robotic age on one hand must happen. On the other man would think of conquering outer space, provided man is able to master the right technology. How can this ever happen without that elusive quantity in the equation- man? By this I mean every facet of his mind, his imaginative faculties and practicality included.
To sum man cannot do away with any of his experience. His imagination like the wax wings of Icarus may fail since his grounding in science was not sound. Man’s fancies may be under no discipline to conform to certain discipline but there shall always be a point where art has to take a degree in a manner of speaking. It may lead to pure research.
Since technology has shrunk the world into a global village we may hear some grumbling at the pure research. But without it or art, technology shall only be a creation of some Frankenstein. The versatility of new-generation Mobile phones is a spin off of exploration of the space.
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Progress of man is a co-operative effort.
Man in trying to express himself does so after his fashion: from nature- a pushpak vimana; or a composite type- wings made of wax in imitation of birds’ wings. He adds something of his own invention to what is already existing. No wonder, inventive mind of man shall not rest with a single success. If he would learn to be airborne he would put it to refine to such degree that shall keep with his ever changing requirements. Hot air balloons shall be replaced with gliding, biplanes and so on.

In course of time we find airplanes are not merely for flying but for military purposes. Planes that could destroy towns, cities thoroughly are natural extensions of man’s striving for excellence. In short man who raises himself ever a notch higher into higher realms finds a drag that makes his angel, a monster. Science bears the stamp of man’s excellence, his curiosity while Technology recognizes only economics. Can there be evil in the very perfection that we strive for?
Devil is in the details, sir. In the very essence of Good resides resident Evil like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. This is inevitable: since every progress of man is necessarily a cooperative effort. How experience of each draws from the Collective experience shall connect, we may expect Dr. Faustus who only thinks acquiring knowledge shall connect with Mephisto who would want his soul in return.
Fancy free and footloose man sets out but before long tollbooths would overtake him and may even stop him for toll.
Ack:Aussie student finds the Missing Mass-AFP May 27 I am giving an excerpt:
Monash astrophysicist Dr Kevin Pimbblet explained that scientists had previously detected matter that was present in the early history of the universe but that could not now be located.
“There is missing mass, ordinary mass not dark mass … It’s missing to the present day,” Pimbblet told AFP.
“We don’t know where it went. Now we do know where it went because that’s what Amelia found.”

Pimbblet said astrophysicists had known about the “missing” mass for the past two decades, but the technology needed to pinpoint its location had only become available in recent years.
He said the discovery could drive the construction of new telescopes designed to specifically study the mass.
Pimbblet admitted the discovery was primarily academic, but he said previous physics research had led to the development of diverse other technologies.
“Whenever I speak to people who have influence, politicians and so on, they sometimes ask me ‘Why should I invest in physics pure research?’. And I sometimes say to them: ‘Do you use a mobile phone? Some of that technology came about by black hole research’.
“The pure research has knock-on effects to the whole society which are sometimes difficult to anticipate.”
benny

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