Material Submitted February 1, 2006

President Carter Used Psychic for Rescue Mission

In a recent interview in GQ magazine, President Jimmy Carter told the story of how he used a psychic to locate a missing plane. The plane had gone down in the middle of Africa and the use of satellites to find it were of no avail.

"The director of the CIA came and told me that he had contacted a woman in California who claimed to have supernatural capabilities,” President Carter said. “And she went into a trance and she wrote down latitudes and longitudes, and we sent our satellite over that latitude and longitude, and there was the plane."

Original Article:

Prez Carter ponders the paranormal

As President, Jimmy Carter may not have consulted an astrologer to decide the details of his schedule - á la Nancy Reagan directing her husband's busy days.

But Ronald Reagan's predecessor did once employ a woman in a trance to locate a downed government plane in Africa.

"We had a plane go down in the Central African Republic. A twin-engine plane. Small plane. And we couldn't find it," the 81-year-old 39th President reveals to GQ magazine's Wil S. Hylton. "So we oriented satellites that were going around the Earth every 90 minutes to fly over that spot where we thought it might be and take photographs. We couldn't find it."

Carter continues: "The director of the CIA came and told me that he had contacted a woman in California who claimed to have supernatural capabilities. And she went into a trance and she wrote down latitudes and longitudes, and we sent our satellite over that latitude and longitude, and there was the plane."

Digging deeper into his personal X-Files, Carter claims he once sighted a UFO.

"I've never believed that it came from Mars....But I saw an object one night when I was preparing to give a speech to a Lions Club," Carter says. "There were about 25 of us men standing around....And all of a sudden, one of the men looked up and said, 'Look, over in the west.' And there was a bright light in the sky....[I]t got closer and closer to us. And then it stopped, I don't know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees. And all of a sudden it changed color to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white. And we were trying to figure out what in the world it could be, and then it receded into the distance."

The truth is out there.

Internet source:

Instrumental Transcommunication Research Documented

The World Instrumental Transcommunication Organization (www.worlditc.org) has created a website devoted to the history and current research on the use of instruments to communicate with the spirits of people who have passed on. Using radios, cassette recorders, telephones, television, and computers, among other instruments, various researchers have demonstrated the possibility of communicating beyond the veil.

Research of this kind has been developing since at least 1900. With modern technology, the variety of means of communication has expanded greatly. The ability to produce clear images of spirits appears to have advanced considerable.

The website contains an enormous archive of research reports, demonstrations, instructions for your own experiments, as well as a library of reading material on this history of this endeavor.

Go see www.worlditc.org

Teenagers Are Church Hopping

American teenagers are exploring church in a way their parents never did—by shopping around. According to a survey conducted by the National Study of Youth and Religion, sixteen per cent of those aged 13-17 attend more than one congregation. A common pattern is to attend the service at the church of their parents, and then go off to a different church to participate in something of their choosing, such as an evangelical church with a rock band. Although some ministers decry the practice as diluting the faith, sociologists of religion suggest that these findings suggest an authentic search on the part of teens for a religious connection that makes sense and feels right to them.

Original article

 

Internet source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/national/30church.html?hp&ex=1136005200&en=98f8b9e43cc264d6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Positive Psychology Proving More Helpful

A gathering of worldclass psychotherapists at Disneyland exchanged opinions on the future of psychotherapy. Advances in psychiatric medicine in the context of health insurance restrictions has made “the talking cure” almost seem irrelevant. One psychologist, however, Dr. Martin Seligman, pointed out that a recent trend in research, often called “positive psychology,” has discovered the various means by which people may thrive by coping skills, such as learning to shape their thoughts by, for example, using affirmations. In the New York Times story on this meeting, Dr. Seligman noted that research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that learning to express gratitude and taking time to smell the roses can be a more effective antidote to depression than the usual remedies.

Original Article:

Internet link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/science/27ther.html

Meditation Fattens the Brain

Regular meditation has both temporary and permanent affects upon the brain’s functioning and physical shape. Whereas parts of the brain usually become thinner with age, regular meditators evidence brain tissue that has actually become thicker, according to a recent study published in the journal NeuroReport.

Sara Lazar, assistant in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital, conducted the study and observed that it is primarily the right hemisphere which shows the effect. It is this hemisphere which is largely responsible for the ability to pay attention, and attention is one thing trained in meditation. She speculated that different forms of meditation using different mental strategies would affect different areas in the brain.

Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale who also participated in the study, commented that. "he study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk."

Original Article:

Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice.

Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception — the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example.

The study also indicates that regular meditation may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.

"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter," said study team member Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale. "The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk."

The research team was led by Sara Lazar, assistant in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital. It is detailed in the November issue of the journal NeuroReport.

The study involved a small number of people, just 20. All had extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation. But the researchers say the results are significant.

Most of the brain regions identified to be changed through meditation were found in the right hemisphere, which is essential for sustaining attention. And attention is the focus of the meditation.

Other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar impact on brain structure, the researchers speculate, but each tradition probably has a slightly different pattern of cortical thickening based on the specific mental exercises involved.

Internet Link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10031664/

Most Precognitive Dreams Foretell Tomorrow

Our dreams give us previews,according to Edgar Cayce, of anything of importance that will be happening to us. How much advance notice do we get? An interesting experiment by Nancy Sondow, published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, gives us some clues.

Ms. Sondow reviewed her dream journal and diary entries covering a period of 50 months to search for precognitive dreams. To determine if a dream was precognitive, she used the criteria that two or more events that were both unusual and unexpected, not usually encountered together, occurred both in the dream and in her future daily life. Using these criteria, she found 123 dreams, out of a total of 943 dreams, that fit the requirement for being precognitive.

Next she calculated the time lapse between dream and event. She found that over half the previewed events, sixty seven to be exact, occurred the day following the dream. Thirty nine of the precognitive dreams previewed events that occurred from two to ten days later. Fourteen dreams previewed events occurring from eleven to one hundred days later, while only three dreams previewed events occurring more than one hundred days into the future.

She hypothesizes that the future is not fixed, and that one’s choices affect whether a prediction will manifest in the future. The longer into the future is a given prediction, the less likely it is to occur. When a dream previews something that will happen the following day, there is less likely that there would be any time for choices to intervene and alter the prediction.

Source: Nancy Sondow, “The decline of precognized events with the passage of time: Evidence from spontaneous dreams. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, January, 1988, Vol. 82, pp. 33-51.

Retraining Brain Reduces Pain

In a novel extension of the biofeedback principle, researchers have discovered that patients with chronic pain can retrain their brain to respond differently to reduce or eliminate pain.

In this study, conducted at Stanford University and published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers enabled patients to watch their brain activity on a functional M.R.I. scanner. While the patient watched that portion of the brain involved in the perception of pain-- the rostral anterior cingulate cortex–the researcher applied a pain stimulus to the patient so the brain’s response to pain would be visible. Then the researcher coached the patient on trying to change the way the brain responded. While watching the brain’s response the patient would attempt various mental strategies, or visualize different images, to discover how to modify the brain’s activity. When successful, the experience of pain vanished.

Original article:

Internet source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/science/20feed.html

Coffee Improves Memory

Happiness is finding research that confirms your experience. Coffee does “perk you up!” Research conducted at Medical University Innsbruck, in Australia, and presented to the Radiological Society of North America found that two cups of coffee made a significant impact upon brain functioning. Using magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain while subjects drank coffee showed that the parts of the brain involved in memory and attention became more active.

Memory tests administered before and after the caffeine consumption demonstrated improved memory function that corresponded to the change in brain activity.

Original article:

Caffeine can perk up your memory

Scans show equivalent of 2 cups of coffee can increase brain activity

CHICAGO - Brain scans confirm what many coffee drinkers already know -- caffeine perks them up.

The caffeine found in coffee, tea, soft drinks and chocolate stimulates areas of the brain governing short-term memory and attention, Austrian researchers said on Wednesday.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans performed on the brains of 15 subjects who had just consumed caffeine equal to that found in two cups of coffee showed increased activity in the frontal lobe where the working memory is located and in the anterior cingulum that controls attention

“We are able to see that caffeine exerts increases in neuronal activity in distinct parts of the brain going along with changes in behavior,” said Austrian researcher Dr. Florian Koppelstatter of the Medical University Innsbruck.

Participants who were subjected to a 12-hour period without caffeine and a four-hour period without nicotine, another recognized stimulant found in cigarettes, were better able to remember a sequence of letters after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine. Reaction times on short-term memory tests also improved.

Caffeine is the world’s most widely used stimulant, according to the research presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Global daily consumption of caffeine averages 76 milligrams, equal to 1 1/2 cups of coffee. In the United States, average consumption is 238 milligrams per day, equal to that found in 4 1/2 cups of java.

Internet Source:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10265862/

Exercise—Mental and Physical—Prevents Alzheimers

“Use it or lose it!” So proclaimed Michael Valenzuela from the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Australia upon publishing the latest of his research showing that mental exercise can prevent Alzheimers. He demonstrated that having a person engage in specific mental exercises for five weeks changed brain chemistry in a direction unfavorable to the development of dementia. He subsequently published in the journal Psychological Medicine his survey of some twenty nine thousand individuals, involving twenty two studies worldwide, that showed that leading an active mental life, especially in the later years, can cut the probability almost in half of developing Alzheimers.

Other research has shown that physical exercise also reduces the chances of dementia. Eric Larson of GroupHealth Cooperative in Seattle followed for nine years the lives of more than seventeen hundred disease free people who were 65 and older. At the end of this period, he found that seventy seven per cent of those who exercised three times a week or more were still free of Alzeimhers.

Original Article:

Mental Exercise Nearly Halves Risk of Dementia

LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.comWed Jan 25, 4:00 PM ET

Staying mentally and physically active throughout life is the best way to keep the mind sharp and reduce the risks of developing dementia, two recent studies show.

One large group study found that staying mentally active reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia by nearly half by building and maintaining a reserve of stimulation.

"It is a case of 'use it or lose it,'" said study leader Michael Valenzuela from the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Australia. "If you increase your brain reserve over your lifetime, you seem to lessen the risk of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases."

46 percent risk reduction

The study combined data from 29,000 individuals and 22 studies worldwide. It was detailed in a recent issue of the journal Psychological Medicine.

It found that individuals with high mental stimulation had a 46 percent decreased risk of dementia. The protective effect was present even in later life, so long as the individuals engaged in mentally stimulating activities.

The findings support the idea that a person's education, occupation, IQ and mental stimulation play a big role in preventing cognitive decline.

In a previous study, Valenzuela showed that after five weeks of memory-based exercise, participants increased brain chemistry markers in a direction that was opposite to that seen in Alzheimer's. The change was concentrated in the hippocampus, one of the first brain regions to be affected in dementia.

Exercise helps too

Another study found that older people who exercise three or more times a week had a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's and other types of dementia. Even light activity, such as walking, seemed to help.

This study, led by Eric Larson of GroupHealth Cooperative in Seattle, was published in a recent issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers tracked 1,740 people who were 65 and older over the course of nine years. The participants were all dementia-free at the beginning of the study.

At the end of the study, 77 percent of the individuals who were still free of dementia had reported exercising three or more times a week. The study could not determine whether certain types of exercise worked better than others.

In addition to preventing dementia, mental and physical exercise has also been found to boost the mood of depressed patients and improve memory in the elderly.

14-Day Plan Improves Memory Some Imagination! How Memory Fails Us Happiness in Old Age Depends on Attitude Depressed? Take a Hike

Internet Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060125/sc_space/mentalexercisenearlyhalvesriskofdementia

Scientists Put Human Brain Cells in Mice

Not in an attempt to make a smarter mouse, but to study the development of human brain disorders, scientists at the Salk Institute in San Diego injected human stem cells into the brains of embryonic mice. These rodents are already more than ninety seven percent genetically identical to humans, but the operation managed to make the injected embryos produce mice with brains that contained about one-tenth of a per cent human brain cells.

The researchers believe such research will enable scientists to one day cure diseases such as Parkinsons. Others worry that a boundary may be crossed, producing animals with human characteristics. Making a smarter mouse trap could become more difficult if these mice with human brain cells were to escape and breed a new race of even smarter mice.

Original Story:

Mice Created With Human Brain Cells

By PAUL ELIAS
AP Biotechnology Writer
Dec 12 7:51 PM US/Eastern

SAN FRANCISCO - Add another creation to the strange scientific menagerie where animal species are being mixed together in ever more exotic combinations. Scientists announced Monday that they had created mice with small amounts of human brain cells in an effort to make realistic models of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

Led by Fred Gage of the Salk Institute in San Diego, the researchers created the mice by injecting about 100,000 human embryonic stem cells per mouse into the brains of 14-day-old rodent embryos.

Those mice were each born with about 0.1 percent of human cells in each of their heads, a trace amount that doesn't remotely come close to "humanizing" the rodents.

"This illustrate that injecting human stem cells into mouse brains doesn't restructure the brain," Gage said.

Still, the work adds to the growing ethical concerns of mixing human and animal cells when it comes to stem cell and cloning research. After all, mice are 97.5 percent genetically identical to humans.

"The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries," said David Magnus, director of the Stanford Medical Center for Biomedical Ethics. "But I don't think this research comes even close to that."

Researchers are nevertheless beginning to bump up against what bioethicists call the "yuck factor."

Three top cloning researchers, for instance, have applied for a patent that contemplates fusing a complete set of human DNA into animal eggs in order to manufacturer human embryonic stem cells.

One of the patent applicants, Jose Cibelli, first attempted such an experiment in 1998 when he fused cells from his cheek into cow eggs.

"The idea is to hijack the machinery of the egg," said Cibelli, whose current work at Michigan State University does not involve human material because that would violate state law.

Researchers argue that co-mingling human and animal tissue is vital to ensuring that experimental drugs and new tissue replacement therapies are safe for people.

Others have performed similar experiments with rabbit and chicken eggs while University of California-Irvine researchers have reported making paralyzed rodents walk after injecting them with human nerve cells.

Doctors have transplanted pig valves into human hearts for years, and scientists have injected human cells into lab animals for even longer. But the brain poses an additional level of concern because some envision nightmare scenarios in which a human mind might be trapped in an animal head.

"Human diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, might be amenable to stem cell therapy, and it is conceivable, although unlikely, that an animal's cognitive abilities could also be affected by such therapy," a report issued in April by the influential National Academies of Science that sought to draw some ethical research boundaries.

So the report recommended that such work be allowed, but with strict ethical guidelines established.

"Protocols should be reviewed to ensure that they take into account those sorts of possibilities and that they include ethically sensitive plans to manage them if they arise," the report concluded.

At the same time, the report did endorse research that co-mingles human and animal tissue as vital to ensuring that experimental drugs and new tissue replacement therapies are safe for people.

Gage said the work published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is another step in overcoming one of the biggest technical hurdles confronting stem cell researchers: when exactly to inject the cells into patients.

The results suggest that human embryonic stem cells, once injected into people, will mature into the cells that surround them. No known human has ever received an injection of embryonic stem cells because so little is known about how those cells will mature once inside the body.

For now, Gage said his work is more geared toward understanding disease than to finding a cure.

"It's a way for us to begin to tease out the way these diseases develop," Gage said.

Human embryonic stem cells are created in the first days after conception and give rise to all the organs and tissues in the human body. Scientists hope they can someday use stem cells to replace diseased tissue. But many social conservatives, including President Bush, oppose the work because embryos are destroyed during research.

Stem cell researchers argue that mixing human and animal cells is the only way to advance the field because it's far too risky to experiment on people; so little is known about stem cells.

"The experiments have to be done, which does mean human cells into non-human cells," said Dr. Evan Snyder, a stem cell researcher at the Burnham Institute in San Diego. "You don't work out the issues on your child or your grandmother. You want to work this out in an animal first."

Snyder is injecting human embryonic stem cells into monkeys and is convinced that there's little danger.

"It's true that there is a huge amount of similarity, but the difference are huge," Snyder said. "You will never ever have a little human trapped inside a mouse or monkey's body."

Internet link:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/12/D8EF1M2O0.html

Sanctification of Family Has Benefits

People who perceive the family as sacred have a more positive family experience than those who do not carry this perception. In a large research study conducted at Bowling Green University and published in The Review of Religious Research, participants who agreed with statements such as “God is part of my marriage” or “My marriage is a holy bond” evidenced greater investment and satisfaction in their marriage, fewer conflicts and a greater degree of collaboration in resolving disputes. This relationship was independent of the participants’ “religiosity” (such as frequency of church attendance).

Mothers who perceived childbearing and their children as sacred evidenced less yelling and scolding of their children. Sanctification of children resulted in less corporal punishment by mothers who had liberal beliefs about the bible, but did not affect the level of corporal punishment given by mothers with conservative beliefs. On the other hand, the conservative-minded mothers who sanctified children had more positive and warm interactions with their children, whereas this effect did not hold for liberal-minded mothers.

Among college students, those who agreed with descriptions of sex as “holy,” “blessed,” “spiritual,” or “miraculous” tended to have more sex and enjoy it more, with less sadness, guilt, and fear. Greater religiosity, however, was associated with less pre-marital sex.

The researchers cautioned, however, that the sanctification of the family can have potentially negative consequences as well. Further research will ascertain whether it is true or not, for example, that those who sanctify marriage and subsequently divorce experience a greater degree of guilt and spiritual failure.

For the full article, click here!

Mental Health Practitioners Urged to Integrate Spirituality

About eighty per cent of psychotherapy patients bring up their spiritual life during therapy, experts estimate, but only about fifteen percent of psychotherapists are prepared to incorporate into therapy that aspect of a patient's life, even though countless studies show that attention to spirituality produces many health benefits. To support mental health professionals in the exploration of spirituality, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology has established a Spirituality Program. It hopes that it will lead to the development of training cuririculum and national credentialing in spirituality and psychology.

Original article:

To see more details about the spirituality conference or program, go to http://www.mspp.edu or call 617-327-6777.

------------------------------------------------------

Yoga Provides Relief for the Chronically Ill

Patients with chronic illnesses are finding that yoga provides some relief from their symptoms, according to a report in the New York Times. Whether it be AIDS, cancer, osteoporosis, or Crohn's disease, patients suffering from these chronic disorders find that there are specific yoga exercises that help them cope with their symptoms. While doctors may recommend yoga classes for general stress reduction, many patients are finding that yoga helps lesson their symptoms and the side effects of their medications. Often patients are in classes with others having similar conditions, so that an element of social support is also present.

Although not a cure for these diseases, studies have found that yoga does have significant impact upon the experience of the maladies. It can reduce fatigue in those with multiple sclerosis, lower anxiety in patients with cancer, heart disease or hypertension, and improve sleep in patients with chronic insomnia.

Original article:

Internet link:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70916FD34550C768DDDAB0994DD404482

Harry Potter Reduces Children’s Accidents

It started as a joke, but became serious science. Public health researchers in Britain noticed a trend and verified it with statistics. On an ordinary summer weekend, hospital emergency rooms can expect to treat many children for cuts, broken bones and other results from accidents. However, on the first weekend following the release of a new Harry Potter book, the accident rate seen at emergency rooms drops by one half!

The authors of the research, reporting in the British Medical Journal, comment, perhaps tongue in cheek, "that there is a place for a committee of safety-conscious, talented writers who could produce high-quality books for the purpose of injury prevention."

Original story:

Safety: With Harry Potter, Injuries Dip Like Magic

By ERIC NAGOURNEY

Is Harry Potter making the world safer for children?

British researchers report that on the weekends when the last two books of the series came out, young people made far fewer visits to an Oxford emergency room. The study, led by Dr. Stephen Gwilym of John Radcliffe Hospital, appears in the final 2005 issue of the journal BMJ, which tends toward the tongue-in-cheek in its year-ender.

The books, by J. K. Rowling, sell millions of copies in the days after their release, leading the researchers to compare them to other popular pursuits like skating and riding motor scooters. But the similarities go only so far, the authors wrote.

"Given the lack of horizontal velocity, height, wheels or sharp edges associated with this particular craze," they said, "we were interested to investigate the impact the Harry Potter books had on children's traumatic injuries during the peak of their use."

(In fact, one of the study's authors "conjured up the original idea," after a quiet on-call weekend, "then witnessing three of his children 'petrified' on the sofa.")

The effect, it turns out, was significant. The researchers looked at how many children ages 7 to 15 went to the E.R. with musculoskeletal injuries on the 2003 weekend after "The Order of the Phoenix" was published, and on the 2005 weekend of "The Half-Blood Prince." They compared these numbers with admissions in a three-year period.

On the Harry Potter weekends, they found, the admission rates went down by almost half - even though each was a pleasant summer weekend when business in the E.R. would ordinarily be good.

The authors see the possibility of broadening the benefit. "It may therefore be hypothesized," they wrote, "that there is a place for a committee of safety-conscious, talented writers who could produce high-quality books for the purpose of injury prevention."

Internet link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/health/03safe.html?pagewanted=print

Historical Forces Reducing Sanctity of Life

Emerging developments in science, politics and demographics are converging to reduce the value placed on human life. Writing in Foreign Policy, Princeton University professor Pete Singer describes two recent events that represent this trend.

The conservative position against using stem cells from human embryos, even if that ban retards medical advances that could help people, received what may be a fatal blow by the South Korean discovery that human stem cells can be cloned by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg with the nucleus of an ordinary cell. Thus ordinary human cells have the potential to produce what’s needed, without having to resort to using embryos. The discovery also undercuts the uniqueness of embryonic cells as it seems that all cells can be cloned to reproduce a lifeform.

The second event involves the controversy surrounding Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube and whether or not it should be removed. The American public rose up in arms against the government’s attempt to intervene in the case. The outcry demonstrated that perhaps a majority of the population would not want to be kept artificially alive in a vegetative state. Developments in technology will make it easier to determine objectively whether or not a patient has any chance at all of coming back to life from such a state, making it easier for the decision to terminate the life support. Meanwhile, as the population ages, there will be greater political pressure to legalize euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide.

An implication of these developments, barely hinted at in the article, is that in conjunction with the increasing awareness of the frequency of near-death experiences, and the growing popularity of mediumship in bereavement counseling, there is an emerging distinction between the life of the body and the life of the person, making it possible for the latter to continue beyond the former.

Original article:

The Sanctity of Life PETER SINGER - Foreign Policy [Peter Singer is professor at Princeton University and the University of Melbourne. His books include Practical Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979) and Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics (New York: St. Martinâ¬"s Press, 1995).] During the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological, and demographic developments. By 2040, it may be that only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct. In retrospect, 2005 may be seen as the year in which that position became untenable. American conservatives have for several years been in the awkward position of defending a federal funding ban on creating new embryos for research that prevents U.S. scientists from leading an area of biomedical research that could revolutionize the treatment of many common diseases. When they are honest, conservatives acknowledge that giving up some medical advances is simply the price to be paid for doing the right thing. This year, however, that view became much more uncomfortable. South Korean researchers showed that human stem cells can be cloned by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg with the nucleus of an ordinary cell. The South Korean breakthrough poses a stark challenge to the conservative position. The possibility of cloning from the nucleus of an ordinary cell undermines the idea that embryos are precious because they have the potential to become human beings. Once it becomes clear that every human cell contains the genetic information to create a new human being, the old arguments for preserving human embryos fade away. The year 2005 is also significant, at least in the United States, for ratcheting up the debate about the care of patients in a persistent vegetative state. The long legal battle over the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube led President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress to intervene, both seeking to keep her alive. Yet the American public surprised many pundits by refusing to support this intervention, and the case produced a surge in the number of people declaring they did not wish to be kept alive in a situation such as Schiavo’s. Technology will drive this debate. As the sophistication of techniques for producing images of soft tissue increases, we will be able to determine with a high degree of certainty that some living, breathing human beings have suffered such severe brain damage that they will never regain consciousness. In these cases, with the hope of recovery gone, families and loved ones will usually understand that even if the human organism is still alive, the person they loved has ceased to exist. Hence, a decision to remove the feeding tube will be less controversial, for it will be a decision to end the life of a human body, but not of a person. As we approach 2040, the Netherlands and Belgium will have had decades of experience with legalized euthanasia, and other jurisdictions will also have permitted either voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide for varying lengths of time. This experience will puncture exaggerated fears that the legalization of these practices would be a first step toward a new holocaust. By then, an increasing proportion of the population in developed countries will be more than 75 years old and thinking about how their lives will end. The political pressure for allowing terminally or chronically ill patients to choose when to die will be irresistible. When the traditional ethic of the sanctity of human life is proven indefensible at both the beginning and end of life, a new ethic will replace it. It will recognize that the concept of a person is distinct from that of a member of the species Homo sapiens, and that it is personhood, not species membership, that is most significant in determining when it is wrong to end a life. We will understand that even if the life of a human organism begins at conception, the life of a person--that is, at a minimum, a being with some level of self-awareness--does not begin so early. And we will respect the right of autonomous, competent people to choose when to live and when to die.

Internet link:

www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3159

Would You Like Fries with Your LabBurger?

Scientists are learning how to produce meat in the laboratory without having to kill any animals. Developments in technology, such as at the University of Maryland and reported in the journal Tissue Engineering, suggest that it may be possible to harvest cells from animals, and then develop the cells into edible meat products. Such an innovation would be easier on the animals and on the environment. Lab grown meat could be made to be healthier than animal gown meat, with less fat, for example.

NASA has already grown little bits of edible fish. The U.S. Food and Drug administration prohibits the marketing of any cloned meat, however, until all health issues have been investigated.

Original article

Scientists Aim for Lab-grown Meat BBC (U.K.) An international research team has proposed new techniques that may lead to the mass production of meat reared not on the farm, but in the laboratory. Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say. Scientists believe the technology already exists to directly grow processed meat like a chicken nugget. The technology could benefit both humans and the environment. "With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world's annual meat supply. And you could do it in a way that's better for the environment and human health. "In the long term, this is a very feasible idea," said Jason Matheny of the University of Maryland, part of the team whose research has been published in the Tissue Engineering journal. Growing the meat without the animal could reduce the need to keep millions of animals in cramped conditions and would lessen the damage caused by the meat production to the environment. Laboratory-grown meat could also be healthier, proponents say. Eating 'mush' Tissue engineering techniques were first developed for medical use and small amounts of edible fish tissue have been grown in research conducted by Nasa. To industrialise the process, researchers suggest the cells could be grown on large sheets that would need to be stretched to provide the 'exercise' for the growing muscles. "If you didn't stretch them, it would be like eating mush," said Mr Methany. Whilst the technology to produce processed meat is here now, producing a steak or chicken breast is still quite a way off, the researchers say. Questions The new techniques could also provide a dilemma for vegetarians. Some may feel able to eat meat that has been grown without an animal being harmed. Others feel that question marks remain about the way the cells would be taken from animals. "It won't appeal to someone who gave up meat because they think it's morally wrong to eat flesh or someone who doesn't want to eat anything unnatural," Kerry Bennett of the UK Vegetarian Society told the Guardian newspaper. How regulators might react is also unclear. The US Food and Drug Administration has asked companies not to market any products that involve cloned animals until their safety has been evaluated.

Internet link:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/4148164.stm

Romantic Love Chemicals Last a Year

How does that flush of romantic love come about and why does it fade? It looks like the reason why is changes in brain chemistry, according to research conducted at the University of Pavia, Italy and published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

The scientists examined the brain chemistry of dozens of couples who were in the early stages of their relationship, experiencing the joys of romantic love. They found a higher than normal level of a certain protein, called nerve growth factor (NGF) that is responsible for feelings of euphoria, sweaty palms, and butterflies. Over time, the level of these proteins dropped back down to normal range, consistent with people who are in long-term relationships. According to the finding in this study, the time it takes for this chemical bounty to subside is about one year.

Original article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4478040.stm

Romantic love 'lasts just a year'

Some couples may disagree, but romantic love lasts little more than a year, Italian scientists believe.

The University of Pavia found a brain chemical was likely to be responsible for the first flush of love.

Researchers said raised levels of a protein was linked to feelings of euphoria and dependence experienced at the start of a relationship.

But after studying people in long and short relationships and single people, they found the levels receded in time.

The team analysed alterations in proteins known as neurotrophins in the bloodstreams of men and women aged 18 to 31, the Psychoneuroendocrinology journal reported.

They looked at 58 people who had recently started a relationship and compared the protein levels in the same number of people in long-term relationships and single people.

In those who had just started a relationship, levels of a protein called nerve growth factors, which causes tell-tale signs such as sweaty palms and the butterflies, were significantly higher.

Of the 39 people who were still in the same new relationship after a year, the levels of NGF had been reduced to normal levels.

Report co-author Piergluigi Politi said the findings did not mean people were no longer in love, just that it was not such an "acute love".

Stable

"The love became more stable. Romantic love seemed to have ended."

And he added the report suggested the change in love was down to NGF.

"Our current knowledge of the neurobiology of romantic love remains scanty.

"But it seems from this study biochemical mechanisms could be involved in the mood changes that occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established."

However, he said further research was needed.

Dr Lance Workman, head of psychology at Bath Spa University, said: "Research has suggested that romantic love fades after a few years and becomes companionate love and it seems certain biological factors play a role.

"But while we are a pair-bonding species, there is some doubt over whether this is within monogamous relationships or not.

"Different societies have different practices and trends."

Internet link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4478040.stm