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Google, not satisfied to let any coder into its Android app store, has invited non-coders alike to invent mobile apps of their own with a simple building-block system that, it claims, anyone can use. The promise, unrealized as yet, is to let every person who bores their friends talking about what a great idea they have for an app to build the thing and be done with it.
Google App Inventor for Android demonstrates how markedly Google’s philosophy differs from Apple’s, whose app model it copied to a great extent. Apple wants a velvet rope to keep subpar developers out, but Google just sent them an engraved invitation, potentially opening the floodgates for exactly the type of deluge of unsophisticated apps that Apple seems so eager to avoid.
“App Inventor requires no programming knowledge,” reads the Google’s description of the program, currently in a closed beta. “This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.”
In the video demonstration to the below right, a woman with a cat creates an app that meows when the user taps a picture of the cat, showing how simple it is to create buttons with the app and tie them to actions, such as the playback of an audio file. Sound familiar? That, my friend, is how fart apps are made (and one of those apparently earned its creator nearly $10,000 in a day).
That said, Google hasn’t opened development to everybody as of today. Would-be app developers must register with a Gmail e-mail address if they wish to be considered for inclusion in the program. Google is prioritizing educational applicants if the questions on the form are any indication, but a note on the page promises, “Complete this form and we’ll have you building apps soon.”
So far, apps created in grade school and university classrooms tests have demonstrated useful applications, from texting one’s location to friends every 15 minutes to responding to incoming texts with a message telling people you’re driving.
In addition to accessing calling, texting, and other phone features, these apps can talk to outside databases, meaning that users should be able to build apps that tap directly into Amazon, Twitter or any other API. In addition, the apps can link up to any web apps the person or their programmer friends may have written. That location-texting app accesses a database consisting of the user’s friends that lives on the web, for instance.
This is the work of computer scientist Harold Abelson, who is spending his sabbatical from MIT working at Google (what does this guy do on his days off?). He based Google Inventor on the OpenBlocks Java library, from the thesis work of Ricarose Roque (with others contributing).
Abelson pointed out that such a thing would not have been possible on Apple’s iPhone, which only allows apps to be created using Apple’s tools.
“We could have only done this because Android’s architecture is so open,” he told the New York Times, adding, “These aren’t the slickest applications in the world, but they are ones ordinary people can make, often in a matter of minutes.”
Google hasn’t truly opened this program up to everyone yet, so it’s still being slightly “Apple” about the whole thing, despite this promise to democratize app creation. But even at this stage, Google Inventor shows a lot of promise for giving the regular users the chance to be creative in ways they couldn’t with a computer.
If this program really can let anyone build anything, it will be interesting to see whether Google’s openness will extend to adding all of these amateur-created apps to its official store.
The technology behind this children’s toy is both simple and complex. Simple, in that an internal stylus is used, manipulated by turning horizontal and vertical knobs to “etch a sketch” onto a glass window coated with aluminum powder.
Complex, because the Etch a Sketch employs a fairly sophisticated pulley system that operates the orthogonal rails that move the stylus around when the knobs are turned. The stylus etches a black line into the powder-coated window to create the drawing.
Along with the aluminum powder, the guts of the toy include a lot of tiny styrene beads that help the powder flow evenly when the sketch is being erased (by shaking), recoating the screen for the next drawing. As for how the aluminum powder sticks to the window, well, it pretty much sticks to everything.
Arthur Granjean, a Frenchman, was the Etch a Sketch’s inventor (he called it L’Ecran Magique, or “The Magic Screen”). After failing to get some of the bigger toy companies to bite, he sold his invention to the Ohio Art Company, which has manufactured it ever since.
Although the traditional Etch a Sketch comes in a red plastic housing, it is now available in several colors.
As insurgents in Afghanistan target the U.S. military’s soft underbelly — its long logistics lines — trucking materiel through war zones has become an increasingly dangerous mission. One U.S. Army solution? Self-driving trucks that let the humans behind the wheel look out for bombs, instead.
Danger Room friend Paul McLeary reports for the new issue of Defense Technology International about an add-on vehicle-automation system called CAST (“Convoy Active Safety Technology“). Developed by Lockheed Martin for the Army on a $5.3 million contract, CAST is a system that you attach to your truck that enables it to drive itself, using radar and sensors (not, say, GPS) to navigate toward a programmed destination.
The system is designed to keep formation with its convoy partners, adjusting speed to maintain safe distances between vehicles, and to pick up the slack if a lead vehicle is disabled. Feel like driving again? Switch CAST to manual and take back the wheel.
According to McLeary, the Army’s tank researchers have put CAST through a ringer: 12,000 hours of unmanned road testing, typically at distances of 35 miles during the day and 15 miles at night. The researchers found that drivers-turned-passengers riding in CAST-controlled trucks were 25 percent more likely to spot roadside bombs, since “the driver was able to watch both sides of the road instead of driving the vehicle.” In other words, algorithms can now play “follow-the-leader” just fine. Looking out for explosives is the hard part — the new place where we carbon units are needed in the loop.
Lots of questions about CAST remain, however. It’s not clear how fast the things go. Previous generations of autonomous automobiles essentially posed a tradeoff between robo-piloting and doing well at basic car tasks like getting to a destination quickly.
So before the Army can field a fleet of Knight Riders to ferry toilet paper and ammo to remote outposts — the dream of the military R&D whizkids in Darpa for decades — Lockheed still has to bring CAST downrange, so Army truckers can test it in active combat zones, hopefully before the end of 2011.
And Afghanistan still may not be its destination even if it works. McLeary reports that it’s not built for going off-road, and Afghanistan still suffers from a dearth of blacktop. That warzone might be a 10-33, so you better pull a brake check before you’ve got Alligators everywhere — or something.
Someone may soon be able to tell what types material are in your pockets from tens, and possibly thousands, of feet away.
Using terahertz remote sensing, detectors could see through walls, clothing and packaging materials and immediately identify the unique terahertz waves of the materials contained inside, such as explosives or drugs.
Until now, detecting terahertz waves — the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwave light — hasn’t been possible from distances more than inches because the waves are absorbed by ambient moisture in the air, killing the signal.
“A lot of other researchers thought that terahertz remote sensing was mission impossible,” said physicist Jingle Liu of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, lead author of the study published July 11 in Nature Photonics.
Liu’s team solved the problem by not relying on the terahertz waves themselves to generate or carry the signal back to the detector. Instead, they used the reflection created by lasers pointed at the target.
Two lasers at different frequencies aimed at the target together generate a plasma (basically excited, or ionized air). This plasma emits a florescence that is scattered in characteristic ways by the terahertz radiation of the material it hits. The reflection of the florescence is detectable from remote distances
The researchers have tested hundreds of different substances and created a library of terahertz spectra to compare to the signal from the target and instantly identify the material that was hit.
The researchers demonstrated that they could detect the signal from 67 feet away, the length of their laboratory space, but theoretically they could identify materials hundreds of feet or even miles away, Liu said.
“Homeland security and military agencies have been struggling for years to get technology like this,” said terahertz expert Abul Azad at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “I think the approach they have revealed is really, really unique.”
The first application of this technology will likely be for the remote detection of roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by the military. Homeland Security and the Defense Department were the primary funders of the research.
Terahertz detectors could also be used for airport security to detect illegal substances hidden in people’s clothes. The approach would be less invasive than x-rays, Liu said, because terahertz waves are much lower in energy. It would not reveal anything concealed inside the body, because the terahertz signals cannot go through water, or metal.
Theoretically, Liu said, terahertz remote sensing could also be used identify the composition of an unknown toxic spill in the environment, or the composition of objects in space.
Image: 1) Schematic of the terahertz wave remote sensing technique/Liu. 2) Wikipedia/Tatoute.
FBI agents have raided the homes of three alleged members of a hacker gang that harassed a security expert who helped put the group’s leader in jail, according to a recently unsealed search warrant affidavit.
Jesse William McGraw, aka “GhostExodus,” pleaded guilty in May to computer-tampering charges for putting malware on a dozen machines at the Texas hospital where he worked as a security guard. He also installed the remote-access program LogMeIn on the hospital’s Windows-controlled HVAC system.
Last month’s raids were prompted by the aftermath of McGraw’s arrest. McGraw was the leader of an anarchistic hacking group called the Elektronic Tribulation Army, and his bust led to a flood of harassment against the Mississippi computer-security researcher who discovered screenshots of the HVAC access online and informed the FBI.
“They set up website in my name to pose as me, and put up embarrassing content or things they thought would embarrass me, including a call-to-action to buy sex toys, and fake pornographic images,” says R. Wesley McGrew, 30, of McGrew Security. “They harvested e-mail addresses from the university I work at and e-mailed it out to those.”
McGrew (who has no relation to McGraw), also suffered DDoS attacks to his website, and threatening e-mails, phone calls and IMs, according to the FBI. The harassment was “affecting a potential witness in an official proceeding,” the affidavit reads, and thus may violate federal law against witness intimidation.
On June 23, the FBI raided the homes of ETA members “Fixer,” “dev//null” and “Xon” in Manteca, California; Hamilton, Ohio; and Pittsburg, Kansas, respectively, as well as the home of McGraw’s sister in Grand Prairie, Texas. The search warrant affidavit was unsealed Friday. McGrew says the harassment stopped after the raids.
A notice on the ETA’s website strikes a defiant note. “On the 23rd of June 2010 the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued search warrants on ETA members,” the site reads. “All their computers and electronic devices have been taken for forensic investigation…. We are not terrorists, we are freedom fighters and cyber protesting is not illegal. ”
From the search-warrant affidavit (.pdf), McGraw’s connection to the harassment appears thin. But the FBI also claims McGraw tipped off another ETA member that the FBI was on his trail, potentially violating obstruction-of-justice law.
On April 17, while McGraw was in jail for the HVAC access, the government gave his attorney a copy of his colleague Fixer’s Gmail and YouTube accounts in pre-trial discovery, revealing that they had Fixer under surveillance. Three days later, McGraw phoned his sister, and in a monitored phone call told her to instruct ETA-member dev//null to post a warning note to the group’s website.
“I need you to tell him that [it's] ‘defcon black’ for Fixer,” he said. “[S]ay that Fixer is now ‘defcon black.’… You need to put it where they can see it … where everyone can see it. This is very important. There is nothing more important than this in life right now.”
He made similar emphatic calls to his wife and a friend, and then his sister again, remarking, “I was told by my attorney that they want to prosecute [Fixer] and arrest him.” He finally got word from his sister on April 23 that the message had been received, according to the affidavit. “I just talked to your Fixer guy,” his sister said. “He told me to tell you that everything’s been good, don’t worry about it.”
“I haven’t seen or heard anything that in my opnion amounts to obstruction of justice for my client,” said John Nicholson, a federal public defender representing McGraw, in a telephone interview Friday. “But that’s not for me to decide, and it’s not for the prosecutor to decide. That’s for the judge to decide.”
McGrew, the security researcher, has “gone out of his way to engage these ETA people,” Nicholson added. “He talks about the case on his blog all the time. It’s my understanding that he taught aspects of this case in his class. He communicates voluntarily with members of the ETA.”
As GhostExodus, McGraw was a colorful figure who once shot a YouTube video of himself staging an “infiltration” mission at an office building, in which he’s seen skulking through the halls and installing RxBot on a desktop computer. According to court records, ETA was building a modest botnet to attack a rival hacker gang. In another video he displays his personal collection of infiltration gear, including lock picks, a cellphone jammer and fake FBI credentials. Both videos turned out to be shot at the Northern Central Medical Plaza in Dallas, where he worked as a night security guard and had free run of the building.
While the videos suggest McGraw was something less than a grave danger to cyberspace, FBI agents took his antics seriously when they learned he’d installed a backdoor in the HVAC unit. A failure of the unit could have affected hospital patients in the middle of a hot Texas summer, or caused drugs and other medical supplies to go bad, according to the bureau.
McGraw’s sentencing in the hospital case is set for September 16 in Dallas.
If you’re like most people, either you reject the idea outright or don’t know enough about it to make an informed decision. What is not generally known to the average westerner, however, is that reincarnation has a good deal of hard evidence to support it, and that this evidence is frequently more impressive than many people are aware. What are these evidences? Below are the ten best evidences in support of the idea for you to ponder. Of course, if you’re already convinced it’s nonsense or, at best, nothing more than a collection of anecdotal stories told by highly suggestible people, I’m afraid this list won’t have much to say to you. For those of you who lack that degree of certainty, however, and are open to considering the possibility that you might have lived before, these top ten evidences could be for you.
10. Conscious Past Life Memories in Children
Perhaps the strongest and best documented evidence in support of reincarnation comes from the work of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson (1918-2007), a Virginia psychiatrist of impeccable credentials, who began studying cases of conscious past life memories in children in the late fifties. Studying almost 3,000 cases of children—most of them between four and ten years of age—who were able to recall having lived past lives, he was impressed with their ability to remember not only their previous life names, but even the date they died and details about the villages in which they previously lived. Many were even able to accurately identify members of their “former” family and were often able to recount “pet names” and intricate details of their previous lives with uncanny accuracy. Additionally, many of the children Stevenson studied could remember how they had died in their previous life, providing details of their demise with a degree of certainty and knowledge inexplicable for a child. So strong were these impressions that in a few cases, the children identified so completely with their past life that they insisted on being called by their former name and even felt alienated from their present family, preferring—and, in some instances, becoming clearly upset—when not permitted to spend more time with their “previous” family.
What’s most impressive about these memories is that these children had not been hypnotized or otherwise ‘regressed’ into remembering previous lives, but had exhibited conscious memories of past lives spontaneously from a very early age. (In fact, Dr. Stevenson specifically made it a point to ignore past life memories acquired through hypnosis precisely because he considered them unreliable and fantasy prone.) While these memories and inclinations tended to fade after a few years and disappear almost completely by adolescence, they remain among the best evidence for reincarnation to date.
9. Corresponding Birthmarks
One of the more interesting and, potentially, solid evidences suggestive of reincarnation, also came from Dr. Stevenson’s research. During the course of his travels he noticed that occasionally some of the children he studied revealed marks on their bodies that precisely corresponded with the fatal wounds they claim their previous personality had suffered at the time of their death. For instance, one of Dr. Stevenson’s subjects, an eleven year old Turkish boy, recounted having been accidentally shot in the head with a shotgun by a neighbor in a previous incarnation. Remarkably, the boy was born with a badly deformed right ear that closely mimicked the wounds the deceased man had received, a fact later confirmed by medical records and photographs Dr. Stevenson was able to obtain from local authorities during his investigation. And this was by no means an unusual case; Dr. Stevenson recounted scores of similar examples, some in which toes and fingers—and in a few cases, even entire limbs—that had been lost in a previous incarnation were missing in the current incarnation, as well as even more startling instances in which there were multiple birthmarks that closely resembled the precise wounds received by the past life subject. In one case, he found matching entrance and exit wounds in a subject that closely corresponded to those of the previous personality, who had died from a gunshot wound to the head. Of course, the chances of such perfectly matching marks occurring naturally even once are astronomical, and Dr. Stevenson had a number of such cases on record.
8. Doctor Helen Wambach’s Demographic Studies
In the late 1960’s psychologist, Dr. Helen Wambach (1932-1985) began a series of experiments that dealt with the demographic consistency of past-life memories. Intrigued by several personal experiences she had encountered in dealing with patients who had described previous lives while under hypnosis and curious to know if there was more to it than simple imagination, she decided to compare the specific details of their “past life” with anthropological, sociological, and archeological studies made of the cultures they mentioned to see if there were any demographic consistency in their recounted memories. Her reasoning was that if gender and social class ratios proved to be consistent with what anthropologists and sociologists had already estimated them to have been, that would demonstrate her subjects “fantasies” correlated with the known demographic data, which would bring significant weight to the idea that human beings continue to live on through the mechanism of multiple rebirths.
Interviewing just over 1,000 subjects over a ten year period, she asked each person about their gender, race, economic status and other often mundane specifics of their daily past lives as they recalled them in 500 B.C, the 1st century A.D., 500 A.D. and 1500 A.D. What Dr. Wambach’s data found was that the information she obtained proved to be remarkably consistent with what demographers know of the ancient past. For instance, as the majority of Dr. Wambach’s subjects were women (by about a 3-to-1 ratio) and working from the premise that most people would be unlikely to imagine themselves to have been a member of the opposite sex, there should have been a disproportionately higher number of individuals remembering themselves to have been females rather than males in a past life. Instead, she was surprised to find a large number of women remembering past lives as a man (along with a smaller number of men remembering past lives as women) that when tallied resulted in a biologically accurate 50/50 ratio of men to women throughout every time period recorded. If these ‘memories’ were based upon pure imagination, such a consistent male/female ratio should be impossible to achieve, suggesting a high number of authentic past life memories existed within her sampling. Additionally, social classes proved to be in line with demographic studies as well: Dr. Wambach had her subjects recount whether they were poor, middle class, or upper class in a previous life, presuming that a disproportionate number of subjects would opt for more interesting or affluent lives, which would strongly suggest the “memories” were manufactured. To her surprise, however, most subjects recalled having lived rather ordinary and even drab lives, often in desperate poverty. In fact, fewer than 10 percent of her subjects recalled living an upper class lifestyle, and about a quarter to a third recalled being artisans or merchants (middle class) in a previous incarnation, which corresponded very closely to sociological studies from the various periods in history she covered. Her data, then, on top of demonstrating an inexplicable consistency when compared to accepted scientific expectations, also destroyed the commonly held notion that most people recall living past lives as famous or wealthy people (the Napoleon syndrome).
Other details proved to be accurate as well. Subjects frequently described architecture, clothing styles and even the coinage in use that was consistent with what archeologists know of the past. Even mundane details such as types of footwear used, eating utensils, primary diet and the methods used to cook their food—details a would-be hoaxer would be unlikely to consider—were also consistent with the known historical record, forcing her conclude that either one of the most wide-spread and carefully maintained hoaxes was afoot, or that just maybe people really do live more than one life.
7. Hypnotic Regression
Probably the best known type of evidence for reincarnation and the type most people think of when considering the subject is that which comes from hypnotic regression. In this controversial technique, subjects are hypnotized and led back through their present life to childhood before being asked to go to a “time before” their present life and describe what they see and experience. Often, subjects are able to recall extremely specific and precise personal details of their past lives such as full names, place of residence, occupations, names of spouses and family members, and other pertinent details of an alleged past life (sometimes even to the precise street address at which they previously resided) many of which frequently prove to be historically, culturally or geographically accurate. (The celebrated Bridey Murphy case of the 1950’s is perhaps the best known example of this, though it was later roundly debunked by the scientific community.) Unfortunately, while most of these cases prove to be imbued with enough detail to make them plausible as past life memories, none has proven to be irrefutable proof of reincarnation as there are almost always a few erroneous details thrown in among the verifiable facts to cast doubt on their authenticity. Additionally, there is a proven phenomena known as cryptomnesia—which is the tendency to read a book or watch a movie and then forget having done so, only to have the fictional but forgotten story recounted later as a “past life” memory—to take into account, so while hypnotism is the most prevalent type of evidence for multiple rebirths available, it if far from the best evidence available.
6. Xenoglossia
One of the more fascinating though rare evidences for reincarnation remains those handful of well documented cases in which hypnotized people reliving a past-life suddenly begin speaking in a language they do not know—either a few foreign words or phrases—or in some instances, an entire fluent conversation in a language the subject is not even aware exists. In some of the most credible and compelling cases of xenoglossia on record, the subject may not only speak in a foreign language, but may even use an archaic version of it that has not been in regular usage for centuries, making it extremely unlikely to be a fantasy, a hoax, or a case of cryptomnesia (forgotten memories). Perhaps one of the best known examples of xenoglossia came from the late actor Glenn Ford, who while under hypnosis during the 1960s recalled a past life as a French cavalryman under King Louis XIV. The astonishing part was that though Ford said he knew only a few basic phrases in French, under hypnosis he spoke French with ease while describing this life. Further, when recordings of his regression were sent to UCLA for analysis, they discovered that not only was Ford speaking fluent French, but he was speaking the Parisian dialect from the 17th century not heard in over three centuries. As such, a good case of xenoglossia remains one of the more compelling evidences for reincarnation, but as they are so rare, they have yet to generate enough hard data to allow researchers to come to any conclusions.
5. Child Prodigies
A prodigy is a child who possesses a special gift or talent—usually for science or the arts—they not only seem to excel at but become remarkably proficient at years ahead of their contemporaries. Good examples of prodigies include the German composer Amadeus Mozart, who was able to compose simple arrangements of music at the age of four and compose entire symphonies by adolescence, and the 17th century mathematician Blaise Pascal, who managed to outline a new geometric system by the age of 11. While modern science attributes these rare gifts to simple brain chemistry, it fails to ask the question of why their brains are wired differently than other people or, precisely, in which way they are differently wired. Is it some genetic mutation or a one-in-a-million mix of DNA and if so, why does it not seem to similarly affect their normal siblings? Or could it be that these special people possess their remarkable ability because they have done it all before? In effect, could the child who shows a special gift for geometry have been a mathematics professor in a previous lifetime or was Mozart able to accomplish his amazing feats of music because, precisely as he claimed, he had been a musician many times before? If past-life traumas, memories, interests, and even experiences seem to be able to manifest themselves in our current life-time, then why not our previous gifts and talents as well?
4. Déjà Vu
Déjà vu is the strange sense that one is repeating an experience they’re certain they’ve never had before, or possessing an inexplicable knowledge of the layout of a building or city that one has never visited before. To some people, such experiences are considered evidence of a past life—an echo or ill-defined memory that has somehow survived the rebirthing process to be inadvertently triggered by some event in the present.
Science insists such experiences are simply a coincidental similarity between a present and a similar but forgotten past experience. No doubt, there is some validity to this idea, as it has been repeatedly proven that memory is a tricky affair that is capable of playing all kinds of pranks on the mind, but this explanation doesn’t seem to explain the sheer amount of detail that is sometimes recalled in the best cases of déjà vu. Even a similarity of places or events cannot explain, for instance, how a person can correctly name and describe the maze of streets that lie just ahead in a small village they are visiting for the first time, nor does it seem to logically account for how a person can recall the precise layout of a home they had never visited before with unerring exactitude. A similarity with places or things experienced in the past can go only so far; at some point the odds against correctly guessing the precise layout of a city or the location of various rooms within a sprawling mansion becomes astronomical, making reincarnation, in such cases, at least a possibility.
3. Idiomatic Phobias
Phobias—those unusual and often overwhelming feelings of fear we sometimes have regarding things that usually do not constitute a genuine danger to us—is a common phenomenon almost everyone has experienced at one time or another. How one acquires a phobia is a well understood process; they are the result of some trauma or event from one’s past—usually in childhood—that manifests itself in later life as an often irrational fear. But what of those phobias that seem to develop without an accompanying trauma? For example, a therapist may find that a man who has been afraid of drowning for as long as he can remember and is terrified of water has never experienced a near drowning, while another may be terrified of horses though they’ve never been near one their entire life. In performing a past life regression, however, the key to uncovering the mystery becomes apparent as many subjects recall being traumatized in past lifetimes, with the resulting fear carrying over to the present life. For example, the man afraid of water may have drowned in a past life, while the person afraid of horses discovers they were trampled to death by one in a previous incarnation, and they retain these traumas into the present incarnation. The good news, however, is that in many cases, once the past life trauma has been identified, the sufferer frequently exhibits a surprisingly quick and complete recovery—often far more quickly than is commonly seen with more conventional therapies. In fact, even the medical community agrees that such therapies are an effective means of dealing with severe, unexplained phobias, though they generally dismiss reincarnation as a viable explanation, assuming instead that the past life “memories” are subconsciously manufactured fantasies created to mask the real trauma behind the phobia. In either case, though, past-life regression has proven to be an extremely effective means of affecting a cure.
2. Homosexuality and Transgender Tendencies
Until fairly recently it was assumed that homosexual behavior was a freely chosen lifestyle choice that could be resisted with sufficient willpower, but evidence has subsequently shown just the opposite to be true. According to recent studies, approximately 2-3% of the population develops or realizes an almost exclusively homosexual orientation from adolescence, while other studies further suggest that the proclivity towards same sex attraction may also have a genetic link. Yet what would cause such a proclivity, especially considering the negative consequences such a life-style has traditionally incurred in some societies? Is it a question of environment and upbringing, or is it entirely a matter of biology?
Or could there be another factor involved? What if the underlying cause of homosexuality is neither environmental nor genetic, but is instead the result of a previous opposite sex incarnation? Since regression therapists frequently encounter cases of men remembering having been a woman in their immediate past life—and woman of having been men—could cross-gender reincarnation have a more profound impact than might seem immediately evident? Perhaps in so closely identifying with their previous gender, they find it difficult to adjust to their new gender and so retain many of the characteristics they possessed in their last incarnation. As such, a man may be attracted to other men because on some level he still retains feminine proclivities from his past life (despite the degree of masculinity he may possess in other areas of his present life). While far from irrefutable evidence for reincarnation, cross-gender rebirth needs to be considered as one possible explanation for same gender affinities (and may have a role in explaining bisexuality, transvestitism, and even pedophilia as well).
10. Hobbies, Interests and Obsessions
Some of us seem drawn to particular objects, places, or things from earliest childhood, frequently turning them into life-long hobbies and obsessions, but where do these interest come from? For example, why would a person be drawn to studying everything there is to know about the Civil War—a conflict that occurred a century before they were even born—or why does a teenager develop a fascination with the country of France though they have never been there or have any obvious connections with the place? Could these be “echoes” from a previous incarnation? Is a Civil War buff simply pursuing a new interest or is he in some ways still clinging to a past incarnation in which he was a participant in that war? Is the teenager simply attracted to France because she admires its language, customs and history, or could there be more to it? Even if we have no conscious memory of that past persona, might not our present hobbies be a reflection of that individual’s experiences and interests? While reincarnation is only one possible answer, it must at least be considered, especially in those cases where one develops a hobby or interest that seems quite out of the ordinary (such as a boy growing up in land-locked Iowa developing a fascination for eighteenth century schooners). It’s not known how much of our past we might retain into our present, albeit in the most subtle and subconscious ways, but it’s entirely possible that our past may be far more tied into our present (and, by extension, our future) than we can begin to imagine.
Until we invent reliable robot soccer referees, fans have one more reason to suspect the refs of bias.
Referees are more likely to make foul calls when they see the action moving from right to left, or leftward, according to a new study by brain researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
Twelve varsity soccer players were shown identical images of plays, with the only difference being that some viewed the images flipped horizontally, so there were right-to-left and left-to-right versions. The participants that saw the action as moving from right-to-left were statistically more likely to call a foul.
Other studies have shown that the direction in which people read and write leads to a bias toward rightward or leftward action. One study found that Italians were more likely to view a soccer goal as “stronger, faster and more beautiful” when it was presented with a left-to-right trajectory rather than the other way around, and that Arabic speakers showed the opposite bias.
Before we throw the human refs out in favor of robots, the bias that they found would need to be repeated with more participants, preferably with video, and with speakers of Arabic or other languages written right to left to confirm any correlation with reading and writing habits.
Life in the 21st century is geared towards work. You're encouraged to reach further and do more. Ironically, when you spend most of your time on work, you throw your life off-balance and end up being less productive than you could otherwise be. Follow these steps to bring pleasure and play back into your life without sacrificing your professional goals.
Instructions
Step 1
Organize your life. A daily planner can help you balance your life. Let it guide you through your day. Make a place for writing down professional and personal goals to keep you focused.
Step 2
Make the effort to plan each day's activities with both work and play time. Prioritize what you need to do but make sure to balance business and pleasure. Write things like "Take Andy to the park" and "Read novel" in your organizer to make sure they get done.
Step 3
Be critical of your job. Explore other work options if it takes up more than 40 hours a week or you're burned out when you get home. Reduce your work hours if you can afford it. Eliminate long-term or large loan payments so you can reduce your work hours.
Step 4
Learn to say "no" to family, friends and co-workers more often. Tell anyone asking for favors that you need to look at your schedule and will get back to them. Be honest about whether you want to do what they ask of you.
Step 5
Use the expertise of others to bring balance into your life. Outsource administrative tasks if you own your own business. Pay your teenage niece to baby-sit your kids so you can take a yoga class. Hire a tax preparer to handle your tax headaches.
Do you get lost easily? Perhaps you're one of those people that always has trouble remembering where you put your keys. Or maybe you're always blanking out on your buddy's husband's name.
Such slips in your memory aren't only embarrassing, they are also usually a sign of worse things to come. The good news is memory loss can be slowed, or even stopped, with a few simple tips. These exercises will keep the rest of your body healthy and functioning, as well.
Keep active
Everyone knows that aerobic activity keeps your muscles fit. Unsurprisingly, jogging, swimming or biking can also increase the blood flow to your brain.
The hippocampus. By Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS), via Wikimedia Commons, CC
Multiple studies have shown that staying active three to five times a week can increase brain volume in an area called the hippocampus, which is responsible for some aspects of memory. Maintaining a healthy weight is also slightly correlated with improved word recall. So get moving!
For those of you who can't handle the monotony of a treadmill, programs like Fitbit or a $25 pedometer from your local sporting goods store can help you incorporate more movement in your everyday life. Don't feel like going to the gym? Walk the dogs another half-hour and see your calories burned and distance traveled tick steadily up.
Learn to love salmon
As it turns out, your mom wasn't lying when she said fish was brain food. Omega-3 fatty acids have been correlated with a lot of positive health effects, including increased vascular health (there's that old blood-flow thing again) and improved concentration. Don't like fish? Omega-3s can be found in flaxseed oil, walnuts and soybeans, as well.
Stew over Sudoku
Remember that number puzzle craze a couple of years back? Sudoku's touted benefits go far beyond keeping you entertained during your morning carpool.
Among other similar studies, a 2009 Mayo Clinic report showed that exercising your brain is associated with a 30-50 percent decreased risk in cognitive impairment.
What does brain exercise consist of? Anything that requires focus and concentration: reading books, playing games and even handicrafts like knitting. A surprising memory-improving activity? Hanging out. Yes, social engagements require focus and concentration as well. So resist the urge to become just another absent-minded curmudgeon. Go to the cocktail party, even if you can't remember where you left your wallet.
Tidy up
Cleaning up the clutter on your desk could have a significant effect on clearing up the clutter in your brain. Why is that? Being conscientious and dependable are both character traits that help you resist cognitive decline, as well as the symptoms of Alzheimer's. Are you a perennial pack rat and slob? Start out small, by picking up for ten or fifteen minutes a day.
