Near-death events have triggered out-of-body experiences. Experts have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience in volunteers. The experiments, described in the Science journal, offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon experienced by one in 10 people. Two teams used virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere. The visual illusion plus the feel of their real bodies being touched made volunteers sense that they had moved outside of their physical bodies. The researchers say their findings could have practical applications, such as helping take video games to the next level of virtuality so the players feel as if they are actually inside the game. Clinically, surgeons might also be able to perform operations on patients thousands of miles away by controlling a robotic virtual self. Teleported For some, out-of-body experiences or OBEs occurs spontaneously, while for others it is linked to dangerous circumstances, a near-death experience, a dream-like state or use of alcohol or drugs. We feel that our self is located where the eyes are UCL researcher Dr Henrik Ehrsson One theory is that it is down to how people perceive […]
WASHINGTON — Health officials in Maryland and other states are scrambling to respond to new Bush administration rules that could effectively end subsidized medical insurance for thousands of children. State officials plotted strategy in a conference call yesterday and are reaching out to governors and congressional allies for help. They hope to block new regulations that limit eligibility for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, a Clinton administration-era partnership between state and federal governments that, supporters say, provides a critical safety net for hundreds of thousands of families. In Maryland, about 3,700 children could be removed from the program under guidelines issued by the Bush administration late last week, roughly one out of every 30 who now get coverage. ‘That’s pretty serious,’ said John Folkemer, Medicaid director in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The health program has been the subject of intense debate in Washington, with a bipartisan group in Congress seeking to expand the initiative to cover more uninsured children, paid for in part with an increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes of up to 61 cents a pack. The House and Senate adopted competing measures this month and […]
1. The economy is an abiding issue in the minds of Americans. Explicit top-of-mind concern about the economy waxes and wanes depending on the current economic indicators and the presence of other high visibility problems, but is always important when the public is asked about it specifically. Along with national security, keeping the economy on solid footing can be considered one of the basic requirements of elected representatives. 2. Americans tend to view the U.S. economy through the prism of jobs. Americans say maintaining the availability of good jobs is the No. 1 thing they would recommend to improve the economy. Statistical research shows that the public’s evaluation of the jobs situation has the strongest relationship to evaluation of the overall economy. 3. As of early 2007, less than half of Americans say now is a good time to be looking for a quality job. This is up from the low points of 2003, but lower than the boom years of the late 1990s. 4. American concern about the economy as a top-of-mind issue remained relatively low so far in 2007, perhaps in large part because the war in Iraq is such a dominant concern. 5. […]
Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me - The silence and the emptiness is so great - that I look and do not see, - Listen and do not hear. - Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979 On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the ‘Saint of the Gutters,’ went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. ‘It is not enough for us to say, ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,” she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had ‘[made] himself the hungry one - the naked one - the homeless one.’ Jesus’ hunger, she said, is what ‘you and I must find’ and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested […]
GENEVA — Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly and spreading faster around the globe than ever and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. With billions of people moving around the planet every year, the U.N. agency said in its annual World Health Report: ‘An outbreak or epidemic in one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an imminent threat somewhere else.’ WHO director-general Margaret Chan said mass travel could facilitate the rapid spread of infectious diseases. ‘No country can shield itself from invasion by a pathogen incubating in an airline passenger or an insect hiding in a cargo hold,’ Chan told reporters. The U.N. agency warned that there was a good possibility of another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions appearing in the coming years. ‘Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history,’ the WHO said. It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in 2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from China to 30 countries and killed […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
