Thursday, October 24th, 2013
SCHJOEDT U, STØDKILDE-JØRGENSEN H, GEERTZ AW, LUND TE, ROEPSTORFF A., - Department of the Study of Religion, Aarhus University (Denmark)
Stephan: This fascinating study helps explain how charismatic individuals literally change the consciousness of their listeners, by getting them to turn off a part of their brains -- a kind of mental self-inflicted castration.
Reference:
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Jan;6(1):119-27. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsq023. Epub 2010 Mar 12.
Abstract
This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how assumptions about speakers’ abilities changed the evoked BOLD response in secular and Christian participants who received intercessory prayer. We find that recipients’ assumptions about senders’ charismatic abilities have important effects on their executive network.
Most notably, the Christian participants deactivated the frontal network consisting of the medial and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally in response to speakers who they believed had healing abilities. An independent analysis across subjects revealed that this deactivation predicted the Christian participants’ subsequent ratings of the speakers’ charisma and experience of God’s presence during prayer. These observations point to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence, a mechanism which is likely to be present in other interpersonal interactions as well.
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Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013
Stephan: Two women readers who were once Girl Scouts sent me this story asking me to publish it. There is something deeply troubled about the Theocratic Right's views on human sexuality. It is so extreme that it calls out for mental health counselling.
Click through to actually hear the audio.
Girl Scout cookie season is still a few months away, but pastor and right-wing activist Kevin Swanson is already worked up about the consequences of eating Caramel DeLites and Thin Mints.
Namely, lesbianism, abortion, Communism and general wickedness.
‘Please, I beg of you, stop buying Girl Scout cookies,
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Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013
DAVID E. HOFFMAN, - The Washington Post
Stephan: I have been writing about the gross overuse of antibiotics in industrial agriculture and animal husbandry for over five years. In that time the alarms have just rung louder and louder. Yet, no politician, Republican or Democrat, has had the strength to take this issue on.
Last spring, Arjun Srinivasan, an associate director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, delivered a presentation to state health officials with some alarming information. Before the year 2000, he said, it was rare to find cases of bacteria resistant to carbapenems, a class of powerful, last-resort antibiotics. But by February 2013 they had been seen in almost every state. Srinivasan also briefed Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. On March 5, Frieden issued a public warning about ‘nightmare
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Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013
Abigail Haworth , - The Guardian/Observer (U.K.)
Stephan: This is an extraordinary trend going on in Japan. It is a very clear example of how national beingness is shaped through unnumbered small seemingly mundane choices made by individuals.
Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counsellor who works out of her narrow three-storey home on a Tokyo back street. Her first name means ‘love’ in Japanese, and is a keepsake from her earlier days as a professional dominatrix. Back then, about 15 years ago, she was Queen Ai, or Queen Love, and she did ‘all the usual things’ like tying people up and dripping hot wax on their nipples. Her work today, she says, is far more challenging. Aoyama, 52, is trying to cure what Japan’s media calls sekkusu shinai shokogun, or ‘celibacy syndrome’.
Japan’s under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren’t even dating, and increasing numbers can’t be bothered with sex. For their government, ‘celibacy syndrome’ is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world’s lowest birth rates. Its population of 126 million, which has been shrinking for the past decade, is projected to plunge a further one-third by 2060. Aoyama believes the country is experiencing ‘a flight from human intimacy’ – and it’s partly the government’s fault.
The sign outside her building says ‘Clinic’. She greets me in yoga pants and fluffy animal slippers, cradling a Pekingese dog whom […]
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Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013
Stephan: Here is what potentially some very good news for women with breast cancer. As you read it though place it in the context of the two pieces I have run recently on the state of the ocean. Once again one can only wonder what other gifts the sea would give us if we would just stop trying to kill it.
A new study has shown that sea cucumber extract kills up to 95 percent of breast cancer cells, 90 percent of melanoma cells, 95 percent of liver cancer cells and 88 percent of lung cancer cells in vitro. The extract also stimulates the immune system against cancer and impedes key processes required for metastasis. While the science behind this is very new to Western medicine, the sea cucumber has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries.
In previous studies, extracts of sea cucumber have demonstrated potent cytotoxicity against pancreatic, lung, prostate, colon, breast, skin and liver cancer cells as well as leukemia and gioblastoma. Researchers have identified a key compound responsible for sea cucumber’s anti-cancer properties: a triterpenoid known as frondoside A.
A new study has now confirmed the anti-cancer effects of frondoside A at a whole new level. In the lab, it has killed up to 95 percent of ER+ breast cancer cells, 90 percent of melanoma cells, 95 percent of liver cancer cells and 85-88 percent of three different lines of lung cancer. But the benefits of this compound don’t just stop at directly inducing programmed cell death (apoptosis). It also inhibits angiogenesis (the ability of tumors to grow new […]
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