Romani Exodus Began Fifth Century AD From India

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What makes this probleminteresting is that the population was both dispersed but mobile and thisallowed any single unit to avoid outright absorption and assimilation.  Intermarriage took place often enough but itwas a single individual every few years and they would always move on severingany local ties.  Thus the populationremained internally more homogenous than would be expected.
They also arrived in Europe atmuch the same time as the Jews entered Europe from the Mediterranean. Both interacted throughout Europe and it will be instructive to compare the resultantgenetic legacy of the two peoples.  Both operatedstrategies that served to preserve their way of life and their success andfailure can be compared to some profit.
It is a reminder that peoples dotend to survive even if their name changes to confuse historians.  It has been popular to assume actualextinctions as a common occurrence.  Notso of course.  Even conquered peopleswould see their people enslaved but integrated all leading to inter marriage atworse.  Even driven out of a homeland thensaw them absorbed next door by a tribe eager to increase their strength to facethe conqueror.  There are exceptions butnot as common as claimed.
What is true here is that thefolk history and other clues all hang together.

European Romani exodus began 1,500 years ago
Posted by TANN
http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.ca/2012/12/european-romani-exodus-began-1500-years.html
Despite their modern-day diversity of language, lifestyle, andreligion, Europe's widespread Romanipopulation shares a common, if complex, past. It all began in northwestern Indiaabout 1,500 years ago, according to a studyreported on December 6th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, thatoffers the first genome-wide perspective on Romani origins and demographichistory.

The Romani represent thelargest minority group in Europe, consistingof approximately 11 million people. That means the size of the Romanipopulation rivals that of several European countries, including Greece, Portugal,and Belgium.

"We were interested in exploring the population history of European Romanibecause they constitute an important fraction of the European population, buttheir marginalized situation in many countries also seems to have affectedtheir visibility in scientific studies," said David Comas of the Institutde Biologia Evolutiva at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain.

The Romani people lack written historical records on their origins anddispersal. To fill in the gaps in the new study, Comas and Manfred Kayser from Erasmus UniversityRotterdam in the Netherlands,together with their international European colleagues, gathered genome-widedata from 13 Romani groups collected across Europeto confirm an Indian origin for European Romani, consistent with earlierlinguistic studies.

The genome-wide evidence specified the geographic origin toward thenorth or northwestern parts of India and provided a date of originof about 1,500 years ago. While the Middle East and Caucasusregions are known to have had an important influence on Romani language, theresearchers saw limited evidence for shared genetic ancestry between theEuropean Romani and those who live in those regions of the world today. Once inEurope, Romani people began settling in various locations, likely spreadingacross Europe via the Balkan region about 900years ago.

"From a genome-wide perspective, Romani people share a common and uniquehistory that consists of two elements: the roots in northwestern India and the admixture with non-RomaniEuropeans accumulating with different magnitudes during the out-of-Indiamigration across Europe," Kayser said."Our study clearly illustrates that understanding the Romani's geneticlegacy is necessary to complete the genetic characterization of Europeans as awhole, with implications for various fields, from human evolution to the healthsciences."

Flexible Graphene Transistor Sets New Records

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This tells us that full blown graphene fabrication and manufacturingintegration is well on the way to achieving it's natural promise. Yetit is barely into public awareness even several years after itarrived on the scene.
I also think that manufacturing is barely beginning to master thisproduct and expect to see astonishing things here not possible onanything else.
We can see decades of advances coming into this easily equal to whatwas experienced with silicon.
Flexible graphenetransistor sets new records
Dec 10, 2012
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/dec/10/flexible-graphene-transistor-sets-new-records


Researchers at theUniversity of Texas at Austin in the US say that they have madestate-of-the-art flexible graphene field-effect transistors withrecord current densities and the highest power and conversion gainever. The transistors also show near-symmetric electron and holetransport, are the most mechanically robust flexible graphene devicesfabricated to date, and can be immersed in a liquid without any illeffects.
Graphene is a single,flat sheet of carbon arranged in a honeycombed lattice. It has manyunique electronic and mechanical properties, such as extremely highcarrier mobility – which means that it is an ideal material for usein ultrafast transistors. The material can also absorb light over arange of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum from the visibleto mid-infrared and is highly transparent to light. The fact that itis mechanically flexible while being incredibly strong is good newstoo.
The researchers, ledby Deji Akinwande and Rodney Ruoff, made their graphene field-effecttransistors (GFETs) directly atop patterned dielectrics on plasticsheets using conventional microelectronic lithography. The deviceshave a unique structure, explains Akinwande, in which multi-fingermetal gate electrodes are embedded in the plastic sheet. They arealso made using graphene that has been grown by chemical vapourdeposition (CVD), which can now produce as good graphene flakes ascan be obtained by exfoliation (the famous "sticky-tape"method).
Record properties
The innovativeproduction technique means that graphene can easily be integrated andfabricated on plastic sheets that have been pre-patterned with metalgates. This produces transistors in which charge carriers can moveextremely fast and in which electrons and holes move in the same way.The devices are also extremely compliant and can accommodatemechanical strains of up to 9% and can be bent and unbent over formore 20 continuous cycles – a record number for flexibleGFETs.
"Overall, ourtransistors feature record circuit performance, the largestmechanical bending and the highest extrinsic cut-off frequencies (ofabout 2.23 GHz) to date for any graphene flexible nanoelectronicdevice," says Akinwande. "What is more, the devices areliquid-resistant thanks to the fact that the surface of the grapheneis passivated with silicon nitride and the plastic substrate isself-passivated. In short, we found that they could beaccidentally dropped into everyday liquids, such as milk, tea orcoffee, and can even survive being run over by a moving vehicle –all without suffering damage to their outstanding properties."
Smart applications
The extremelyflexible, high-performance devices could be ideal for smart,conformal, advanced electronics that could offer performancecapabilities beyond today’s silicon-based technology while alsobeing cheaper, lighter, more environmentally friendly and witharbitrary form factors, claims Akiwande. "Potential applicationsinclude flexible smartphones, displays, fabric and even smart walls,"he adds.
The team, which ispresenting its work this week at the International Electron DevicesMeeting in San Francisco, is now busy trying to make flexiblewireless radios and mobile systems using the new GFETs at gigahertzfrequencies. "From a basic research point of view, we are alsolooking into heat management in these devices on flexible plasticsubstrates, which is a major issue for transistors operating at highspeeds and current densities," adds Akinwande.
About the author
Belle Dumé is acontributing editor to nanotechweb.org

Toy Companies Feel Wind of Tablet Competition

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 Well maybe and maybe not. The problem is that we are inept atoptimizing the child's experience so that he is rewarded forimproving his brain functionality. The bad news is that I think itcan be done and really be beneficial also. The brain has a number offunctionalities that need to be worked in order for them to beoptimized. The best time to start is always as soon as possible.
It is not the tablet but the promise of the tablet that now clearlyhas the horsepower to manage robotic toys and soon will. We willlikely have to develop new toy concepts to properly exploit all this. What is really happening is that the toy industry is smelling thefirst winds of serious competition and like everyone else will findit difficult to make the adjustment.
And yes, a much better 'educated child will soon be going up marketsooner except we do not know what has happened to the sales curve oflater toys already so impacted. Possibly little will happen as thereis never an end to doting parents.
Toy companies'terrified' of tablets
New York (UPI) Dec25, 2012
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Toy_companies_terrified_of_tablets_999.html

A U.S. toy industryanalyst says toymakers Mattel and Hasbro are "terrified" ofchildren turning away from traditional toys toward tablet computers.
Sean McGowan, managingdirector of equity research at investment banking firm Needham &Company, said children as young as 3 years old are receiving tabletssuch as iPads and Kindle Fires for Christmas this year, instead ofBarbie and other traditional playthings, The Financial Times reportedTuesday.
"The top twoguys, Mattel and Hasbro, they are terrified," McGowan said."They should be terrified, but the official party line isthey're not terrified."
Hasbro officials saidthe company is working to catch up to the tech-savvy youngsters.
"Clearly,young people have an aptitude for and expectation with digitalplatforms that we need to recognize," said John Frascotti,chief marketing officer for Hasbro.
Frascotti said one ofthe company's attempts to recognize the importance of digital mediais the reinvention of popular 1990s toy Furby, which now comes with afree mobile app used to "feed" the toy and translate itslanguage, "Furbish," into English.
Mattel officialsdeclined to comment

Kim Jong-Un Seeks Confrontation End

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 So far we have been forced to read tea leaves with the new NorthKorean Leader as he consolidates control and retires any opposition. This represents the first pronouncement that can be accepted as aninvitation to rationalize the situation and should be followed up.
Unless he is blind and stupid, not a zero risk, the way forward isobvious. Resolving the confrontation and standing down is a reallygood place to begin. After all that, the next order of business isto establish protocols that groom North Korea for outright absorptioninto a Greater Korea.
It is a decadal enterprise that will see radical reform for the NorthKoreans. I expect them to track the German experience. I think thatthe odds are now in favor of just this been undertaken. We can hope.
North Koreanleader, in rare address, seeks end to confrontation with South
By Jack Kim |
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/north-korean-leader-rare-address-seeks-end-confrontation-024100592.html

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontationbetween the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of apeace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year'sbroadcast on state media.
The address by Kim,who took power in the reclusive state after his father, Kim Jong-il,died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting NewYear's editorial published annually in the past in leading statenewspapers.
But North Korea hasoffered olive branches before and Kim's speech does not necessarilysignify a change in tack from a country which vilifies the UnitedStates and U.S. ally South Korea at every chance.
Impoverished NorthKorea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocketin December it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite inorbit, drawing international condemnation.
North Korea, whichconsiders the North and South one country, the Democratic People'sRepublic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nucleartechnology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009nuclear weapons tests.
"An importantissue in putting an end to the division of the country and achievingits reunification is to remove confrontation between the north andthe south," Kim said in an address that appeared to bepre-recorded.
"Past records ofinter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellowcountrymen leads to nothing but war," he said, speaking from anundisclosed location.
The New Year's addresswas the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader, following thedeath of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un's grandfather. Kim Jong-il rarelyspoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda ineditorials in state newspapers.
MAY BE LINKED TO CALLFOR AID
Kim's statement"apparently contains a message that he has an intention todispel the current face-off (between the two Koreas), which couldeventually be linked with the North's call for aid" from theSouth, said Kim Tae-woo, a North Korea expert at the state-fundedKorea Institute for National Unification.
"But such a movedoes not necessarily mean any substantive change in the North Koreanregime's policy towards the South."
There was no immediatereaction from Washington.
Bruce Klingner, asenior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation inWashington, said, "Kim Jong-un's New Year's message wasdifferent in format but not in content." It offered furtherevidence the young leader is following in the footsteps of hisgrandfather, rather than his father, he said.
While the youngerKim's public diplomacy resonates well with the North Korean public,"the new North Korean leader's impact on the outside world isundermined by North Korea's continued provocations and bombasticrhetoric," Klingner said.
The two Koreas haveseen tensions rise to the highest level in decades after the Northbombed a Southern island in 2010, killing two civilians and twosoldiers.
The sinking of a SouthKorean navy ship earlier that year was blamed on the North butPyongyang has denied it and accused Seoul of waging a smear campaignagainst its leadership.
Last month, SouthKorea elected as president Park Geun-hye, a conservative daughter ofassassinated military ruler Park Chung-hee, whom Kim Il-sung hadtried to kill at the height of their Cold War confrontation.
Park has vowed topursue engagement with the North and called for dialogue to buildconfidence but has demanded that Pyongyang abandon its nuclearweapons ambitions, something it is unlikely to do.
Conspicuously absentfrom Kim's speech was any mention of North Korea's nuclear armsprogram.

Aging Boomer's Blog

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Hey, a short entry today to plug my relatively new website where I'm blogging on a regular basis about getting older and all the trappings that come with it.

I named the site cleverly...

AgingBoomersBlog.com

Okay, so that's not so clever. But it was an available domain name that more-or-less reflected what it was going to be about.

Anyway, if you're an aging boomer, surf on over and bookmark my new site. Then spend some time there reading the many posts already up and then spending some more time commenting and moving the discussions forward.

I promise my AgingBoomersBlog.com will never be dull or boring or politically correct!

Chet "Aging Boomer" Day
Editor, The Natural Health Circus
http://chetday.com/blog

African Transition

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Human continuity for 300,000 years appears to be much longer thanpresently accepted and continuous occupation may well imply culturalstasis. Thus the bottleneck may alternatively mean that a specialgroup made the key breakthrough around 50,000 years ago.
That also fits well with our projected time line for a ten thousandyear transition to modernity from 50,000 BP to 40,000 BP. Our owntransition has taken about the same amount of time since thePleistocene Nonconformity.
An expanding special population of modernizing humanity will simplyabsorb remnant groups back into the global DNA in much the same waythat our last tribes are been absorbed into our six billion manocean.

Tracing humanity'sAfrican ancestry may mean rewriting 'out of Africa' dates

This 2012 image showsthe structure used by inhabitants of the region for well over 200000years. Credit: Pamela Willoughby, University of Alberta.
by Staff Writers
Edmonton, Canada(SPX) Dec 18, 2012

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tracing_humanitys_African_ancestry_may_mean_rewriting_out_of_Africa_dates_999.html

New research by aUniversity of Alberta archeologist may lead to a rethinking of how,when and from where our ancestors left Africa. U of A researcher andanthropology chair Pamela Willoughby's explorations in the Iringaregion of southern Tanzania yielded fossils and other evidence thatrecords the beginnings of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Her research, recentlypublished in the journal Quaternary International, may be key toanswering questions about early human occupation and the migrationout of Africa about 60,000 to 50,000 years ago, which led to modernhumans colonizing the globe.
From two sites,Mlambalasi and nearby Magubike, she and members of her team, theIringa Region Archaeological Project, uncovered artifacts thatoutline continuous human occupation between modern times and atleast 200,000 years ago, including during a late Ice Age period whena near extinction-level event, or "genetic bottleneck,"likely occurred.

Now, Willoughby andher team are working with people in the region to develop this areafor ecotourism, to assist the region economically and createincentives to protect its archeological history.
"Some of thesesites have signs that people were using them starting around300,000 years ago. In fact, they're still being used today,"she said. "But the idea that you have such ancient humanoccupation preserved in some of these places is pretty remarkable."
Magubike: Home to amodern Stone Age family?
Willoughby saysone of the fascinating things about Magubike is the presence of alarge rock shelter with an intact overhanging roof. The excavationsyielded unprecedented ancient artifacts and fossils from under thisroof. Samples from the site date from the earliest stages of themiddle Stone Age to the Iron Age. The earlier deposits include humanteeth and artifacts such as animal bones, shells and thousands offlaked stone tools.
The Iron Age finds canbe dated using radiocarbon, but the older deposits must go throughmore specialized processes, such as electron spin resonance, todetermine their age. Other parts of the Magubike rock shelter,excavated in 2006 and 2008, include occupations from after the middleStone Age. Taken together, this information could be crucial totracking the evolutionary development of the inhabitants.
"What's importantabout the whole sequence is that we may have a continuous recordof human occupation," said Willoughby. "If we do-and we canprove it through these special dating techniques-then we have a placepeople lived in over the bottleneck."
Rugged, hilly terrainmay have been key to survival
The team madesimilar findings at Mlambalasi, about 20 kilometres from Magubike.Among the findings at this site was a fragmentary human skeleton thatprobably dates to the late Pleistocene Ice Age-after theout-of-Africa expansion but at the end of the bottleneck period.
The bottleneck theoryexplains what geneticists have found by studying the mitochondrialDNA of living people-that all non-Africans are descended from onelineage of people who left Africa about 50,000 years ago.
Reconstructions ofpast environments through pollen and other archeological records inIringa suggest that people abandoned the lowland, tropical andcoastal areas during that period but remained in the highlands, wherevegetation has remained mostly unchanged over the last 50,000 years.Those who moved to higher ground may have found what is likely one ofthe few places that facilitated their survival and forced theiradaptation. Further testing will determine whether these findingspoint to a clearer link to our African ancestors-a find Willoughbysays could put that region of Tanzania on many archeologists' radar.
"It was onlyabout 20 years ago that people recognized that modern Homo sapiensactually had an African ancestry, and everyone was focused on lookingat early Homo sapiens in Europe who appeared around 40,000 yearsago," she said.
"But we now knowthat as far as back as around 200,000 years ago, Africa was inhabitedby people who were already physically exactly like us today or reallyclose to being the same as us. All of a sudden, it's not Europe inthis time period that's really important, it's Africa."
Engaging communityyields co-operation, opportunity
Along with itsscientific significance, Willoughby's work may be a linchpin topotential economic growth for the region. Since 2005, when a localcultural officer showed her the sites, she has been sharinginformation about her research with local citizens, schools andgovernment-opening up opportunities for more research andco-operation.
She keeps the regioninformed of the team's findings through posters distributed aroundIringa, and has asked for and accepted assistance from localscholars. Now the community is also looking for her help inestablishing the historic sites as a tourist attraction that willbenefit the region.
Willoughby says shefeels fortunate to have the support of the Tanzanian people. Shetells people it is a shared history she is uncovering, something sheis honoured to be able to do.
"They're tellingme, 'You're putting Iringa on the map,'" she said. "As longas they keep letting me work there, and keep letting the peopleworking with me work there, we'll be happy."

Mag 9 Threat Cascadia and Himalaya

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It has long been known that the Cascadia subduction zone is able todeliver a magnitude 9 event having done so three hundred years ago. What we have lacked is meaningful comparisons for folks living in theareas of population concentration. So a few thoughts are in order.
A tsunami will happen, but it is almost no threat around the inlandwaters of the Salish Sea. On the Pacific side there is plenty ofrisk but limited outright exposure except around the Columbia river. Otherwise the coastal population is modest but all fatally exposed byand large. I have driven through areas that I thought that they werecrazy to build on.
Thus the real damage will be caused by outright shaking of theground. The houses themselves will stand up very well minimizing theloss of life but otherwise will be mostly wreaked. Recall that a Mag9 shake will be heavily damped by the coastal mountains on its way topopulation centers.
The more serious problem in Vancouver will be land slips on thehousing covered hillsides. Most will not be large but foundationswill be generally destroyed easily were they lack stone bases.
Anther serious risk will be liquid-faction in the Fraser Delta. Fortunately it is all above sea level. Again we will have wreakedfoundations.
My own sense is that we are two centuries away and that the damagealthough severe enough will be readily recovered from at the housinglevel while most of the rest will ride through surprisingly well.
It has to also be said that good Earthquake standards have been inplace for thirty years and every serious renovation has beenincluded. Thus our building stock is likely already mostly up tostandard since this city has been building steadily.
Seattle is also cycling out most of their most vulnerable structuresand give it another generation and it will all be mostly survivable.
Himalayas and Pacific Northwestcould experience major earthquakes, Stanford geophysicists say
by Bjorn Carey for StanfordNews
Stanford CA (SPX) Dec 11, 2012
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Himalayas_and_Pacific_Northwest_could_experience_major_earthquakes_Stanford_geophysicists_say_999.html

Stanford geophysicists are wellrepresented at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union thisweek in San Francisco. Included among the many presentations will beseveral studies that relate to predicting ­- and preparing for -major earthquakes in the Himalaya Mountains and the PacificNorthwest.
The AGU Fall Meeting is the largestworldwide conference in the geophysical sciences, attracting morethan 20,000 Earth and space scientists, educators, students, andother leaders. This 45th annual fall meeting is taking place throughDec. 7 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
A big one in the Himalayas
The Himalayan range was formed,and remains currently active, due to the collision of the Indian andAsian continental plates. Scientists have known for some time thatIndia is subducting under Asia, and have recently begun studying thecomplexity of this volatile collision zone in greater detail,particularly the fault that separates the two plates, the MainHimalayan Thrust (MHT).
Previous observations had indicateda relatively uniform fault plane that dipped a few degrees to thenorth. To produce a clearer picture of the fault, Warren Caldwell, ageophysics doctoral student at Stanford, has analyzed seismic datafrom 20 seismometers deployed for two years across the Himalayas bycolleagues at the National Geophysical Research Institute of India.
The data imaged a thrust dipping agentle two to four degrees northward, as has been previouslyinferred, but also revealed a segment of the thrust that dips moresteeply (15 degrees downward) for 20 kilometers. Such a ramp has beenpostulated to be a nucleation point for massive earthquakes inthe Himalaya.
Although Caldwell emphasized thathis research focuses on imaging the fault, not on predictingearthquakes, he noted that the MHT has historically beenresponsible for a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake every severalhundred years.
"What we're observing doesn'tbear on where we are in the earthquake cycle, but it has implicationsin predicting earthquake magnitude," Caldwell said. "Fromour imaging, the ramp location is a bit farther north than has beenpreviously observed, which would create a larger rupture width and alarger magnitude earthquake."
Caldwell will present a posterdetailing the research on Tuesday, Dec. 4, from 1:40 p.m. to 6 p.m.in Moscone South, Halls A-C.
Caldwell's adviser, geophysicsProfessor Simon Klemperer, added that recent detections of magma andwater around the MHT indicate which segments of the thrust willrupture during an earthquake.
"We think that the bigthrust vault will probably rupture southward to the Earth'ssurface, but we don't expect significant rupture north of there,"Klemperer said. The findings are important for creating riskassessments and disaster plans for the heavily populated cities inthe region.
Klemperer spoke about the evolutionof geophysical studies of the Himalayas (Dec. 3) from 1:40 p.m. to3:40 p.m. in Moscone South.
Measuring small tremors in thePacific Northwest
The Cascadia subduction zone,which stretches from northern California to Vancouver Island, has notexperienced a major seismic event since it ruptured in 1700, an8.7-9.2 magnitude earthquake that shook the region and created atsunami that reached Japan.
And while many geophysicists believethe fault is due for a similar scale event, the relative lack of anyearthquake data in the Pacific Northwest makes it difficult topredict how ground motion from a future event would propagate in theCascadia area, which runs through Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.Stanford postdoctoral scholarAnnemarie Baltay will present research on how measurements of smallseismic tremors in the region can be utilized to determine how groundmotion from larger events might behave.
Baltay's research involves measuringlow amplitude tectonic tremor that occurs 30 kilometers below Earth'ssurface, at the intersections of tectonic plates, roughly over thecourse of a month each year.By analyzing how the tremor signaldecays along and away from the Cascadia subduction zone, Baltay cancalculate how ground motion activity from a larger earthquake willdissipate. An important application of the work will be to helpinform new construction how best to mitigate damage should a largeearthquake strike.
"We can't predict when anearthquake will occur, but we can try to be very prepared for them,"Baltay said. "Looking at these episodic tremor events can helpus constrain what the ground motion might be like in a certain placeduring an earthquake."
Though Baltay has focused on theCascadia subduction zone, she said that the technique could beapplied in areas of high earthquake risk around the world, such asAlaska and Japan.
Baltay will present a posterpresentation of the research on Wednesday (Dec. 5) from 1:40 p.m. to5:40 p.m in Moscone South, Halls A-C.
Cascadia quake simulations
The slow slip and tremor eventsin Cascadia are also being studied by Stanford geophysics ProfessorPaul Segall, although in an entirely different manner. Segall's groupuses computational models of the region to determine whether thecumulative effects of many small events can trigger a majorearthquake.
"You have these small eventsevery 15 months or so, and a magnitude 9 earthquake every 500 years.We need to known whether you want to raise an alert every time one ofthese small events happens," Segall said.
"We're doing sophisticatednumerical calculations to simulate these slow events and see whetherthey do relate to big earthquakes over time. What our calculationshave shown is that ultimately these slow events do evolve intothe ultimate fast event, and it does this on a pretty short timescale."
Unfortunately, so far Segall's grouphas not seen any obvious differences in the numerical simulationsbetween the average slow slip event and those that directly precede abig earthquake.
The work is still young, and Segallnoted that the model needs refinement to better match actualobservations and to possibly identify the signature of the event thattriggers a large earthquake."We're not so confident in ourmodel that public policy should be based on the output of ourcalculations, but we're working in that direction," Segall said.
One thing that makes Segall's workdifficult is a lack of data from actual earthquakes in the Cascadiaregion. Earlier this year, however, earthquakes in Mexico and CostaRica occurred in areas that experience slow slip events similar tothose in Cascadia.
Segall plans to speak withgeophysicists who have studied the lead-up to those earthquakes tocompare the data to his simulations.

Better Barley

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 Work like this is always welcome to see. What we need to see isgenetic engineering that adapts desert plant strategies into ourgrassland crops. A thick blade that holds water sounds like a dealmaker costing little if any extra plant energy. Such a plant cangrab moisture and hold it through a long dry spell. It may even makethe blade more palatable and useful to ruminants.
Selection will be helpful, but mostly marginally.
A genetic strategy could be applied across all grains and allowcropping in lands far more arid and make irrigation far moreefficient. We know that desert plants can do this quite well.
Now if we could figure out how to produce a plant that happens toabsorb moisture out of the atmosphere late at night.
Building betterbarley
by Staff Writers
Edmonton, Canada(SPX) Dec 18, 2012

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Building_better_barley_999.html

As one of the top 10barley producers in the world, Canada faces a problem of adapting tothe 'new normal' of a warmer, drier climate. The 2012 growing seasonwas considered an average year on the Canadian Prairies, "but westill had a summer water deficit, and it is that type of condition weare trying to work with," said Scott Chang, a professor of soilscience in the University of Alberta's Department of RenewableResources in Edmonton, Canada.
Chang teamed withfellow crop scientist Anthony Anyia of Alberta Innovates - TechnologyFutures in 2006, following a severe drought in 2002 that droppedaverage crop yield in Alberta by about half.
They are exploring thegenetic makeup of barley and how the grain crop-a Canadian stapleused for beer malt and animal feed-can be made more efficient in itswater use and more productive.
One of their lateststudies, published in the journal Theoretical and Applied Genetics,explores how to increase yield in barley crops while using lesswater.
By studying the carbonisotope compositions of barley plants and their relationship withwater-use efficiency, the researchers developed tools that plantbreeders can use to improve selection efficiency for morewater-efficient varieties.
The latest findingsstem from an ongoing collaboration that is ultimately aimed atbringing farmers a more stable breed of the plant that has lessreliance on water and is less vulnerable to climate change.

Grazing Amazonia

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Somethingas obvious as grazing rotation stabilizes the pasturage and plausiblyprevents its elimination. That is very good news for tropicalsoils everywhere. If they also sustain partial forest cover whilethey do all this, we may also have natural refertilization underwayalso. Recall that cattle grazing is minimal on the uptake ofnutrients.
Thisshould also lead to groomed forests with a modest investment ineffort. What is clearly needed is an ongoing education program forfarmers on practical methods used elsewhere.
Thisalso tells us that grazing rotation has been underutilizedeverywhere. Of course climate modifies all that elsewhere, but weneed to think about it still. I recall that in the lower mainlandthat it is possible to take seven cuttings of alfalfa.
Farming in Brazil’sAmazonas: Preserving the Hands That Feed
A program in Brazil'sAmazonas helps farmers generate income while preserving therainforest
By Ticiane Rossi December 27, 2012
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/farming-in-brazil-s-amazonas-preserving-the-hands-that-feed-328943.html

ITATIBA, Brazil—Hitby drought in his hometown of Marilândia do Sul, Brazilian farmerCarlos Roberto Koch decided to move to Apuí in the Amazonas State in2005, where he could take advantage of the more stable climate andthe fertile grounds of the Amazon forest.
He started farminggrains once again, and the outlook was optimistic. Having learned alesson from his first farming experience, however, Koch didn’t takeany chances, and started farming cattle and developing pasture landon the side as well.
What started as an alternative means of income gradually becamehis main source of livelihood, and farming cattle and selling dairyproducts became his main focus as they proved to be more stable inthe long term compered to farming grains.
But it wasn’t longbefore Koch’s consciousness caught up with him: Like many othersfarming along the Amazon rainforest, Koch’s profession wascontributing to the demise of the world’s largest rainforest; itwasn’t hard to see that he was gradually destroying his own sourceof income as well.
Besides logging,mining, oil exploration, and construction of infrastructure, cattlefarming and expansion of agricultural land along the Amazonrainforest are one of the main factors of deforestation of theAmazon.
According to theAmazon Network for Georeferenced Environmental Information (RAISG),pastures account for over 90 percent of the farmland along theAmazon.
“The issue ofdeforestation of Amazon is an economic issue,” says Mariana Pavan,a researcher with the Institute for Conservation and Development ofthe Amazonas (IDESAM), a nongovernmental organization dedicated topreserving the Amazon and promoting the use of sustainable resources.
“The reality is thatAmazon deforestation occurs because people need to make a living.”
That is why Pavan andother researchers with IDESAM created a program that, with thecontribution from the government and people in Apuí, focuses onmaintaining income for the farmers while helping to preserve therainforest. 
Since the time of itsinception in 2005, the program has been tested with five farmingfamilies, including Koch’s.
One of the mainelements in IDESAM’s program is the development of a “rotationalgrazing system.” Under this project, anarea of around 30 hectares is divided into seven equal segments, andlivestock is allowed to feed in each area for a period of seven days,while the grass in the other areas is left to grow and recover. Thisway, cattle always have good quality grass to feed on, and thanks tothe optimized grass recovery system, the number of animals that canfeed per unit area has increased three to four times compared to atraditional pasture. This removes the need to deforest new areasof the Amazon to develop more pastureland.
[ whywas this not figured out decades ago? - I think we are dealing withhuman laziness, it costs time to produce fences and to watch and moveanimals. Arclein ]
IDESAM also has anumber of other projects directed at preserving the rainforest,including reforestation of permanent preservation areas along therivers [ At the Least!! -Arclein], as well as projects directed at maximizingthe income of local farmers, including the development of a cattlefattening model, a model for optimizing dairy production, and otherinitiatives.
Koch, who is also thepresident of the rural union of Apuí, says the program has been asuccess, and besides minimizing their environmental impact, he andother farmers in the program have been able to triple the number oftheir cattle thanks to the savings and optimization achieved throughthe program.
“Our motto today isforest preservation and maintaining man in the field,” Koch says.
Gabriel CardosoCarrero, the program coordinator for climate change and environmentalservices at IDESAM, says the main challenge in implementing IDESAM’sprograms is helping people change their habits, and having thembecome used to continually changing their habits.
“We have goodrelations with the farmers, thanks to several years of interaction;however, many [farmers] have no confidence that the project willsucceed,” Carrero says.
“There had beenseveral projects before IDESAM’s where farmers promised [toimplement changes] and nothing happened. But there are also projectsthat really lead to change.”
He thinks one of thereasons some programs fail is that they are not developed keeping inmind the needs of the farmers.
“I think thegovernment needs to be more realistic in their initiatives becausethey are not usually very connected with what happens on the field,”he says.
As for Koch, he issatisfied knowing that he can generate income while playing a role inpreserving the rainforest at the same time.
He now wants to showto the government that the IDESAM program has been a success, andencourage authorities to improve farming production in existing sitesand prevent the development of new areas, so that no more areas ofthe Amazon have to be deforested.
“The hands thatproduce are the same that preserve,” says the 49-year-old farmer.
“If you provideliving conditions for farmers, they will become guardians of theforest.

Yen Decline

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It isnot exactly a collapse of course, but it is certainly a readjustmentthat properly reflects the collateral position Japan occupies withChina and the USA. It is still noteworthy and suggests a strongburst in Japanese growth is now pending. At the same time it isdefensive and markets out uncertainty regarding both China's and theUSA's financial posture.
Inthe meantime, Japan is liquidating the tsunami damage in good orderalthough it will require several more years for that to be finished.
Rumorsof war are more to do with internal infighting in China than anythingelse.

Here's What'sBehind The Collapse Of The Japanese Yen — The Biggest EconomicStory In The World

Joe Weisenthal | Dec. 27, 2012
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-yen-has-been-getting-crushed-2012-12


Earlier we joked thatlost in all of the Fiscal Cliff shuffle was the fact that the yen hasbeen getting clobbered.
SocGen's FX guruKit Juckes jokingly responded that far from getting "lost"the yen carnage was actually the only game in town

Indeed thisis really the huge story in global markets right now. In addition tobeing a major shift in one of the world's biggest and strongestcurrencies, it affects all sorts of manufacturers who do business inyen, or compete with companies that do business in yen.
Here's a three-yearchart of the CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust, an ETF that'sdesigned to track the yen. As you can see, it's been collapsing, andis now at a level that hasn't been seen in over two years.
what's causing theyen carnage?
There's actually noone thing.
But a few of them are:
-- Shinzo Abe: Japan's new Prime Minister (who took officeyesterday) has pledged to force the Bank ofJapan into ultra-easy monetary policy, and he's even favored bondpurchases for the direct purpose of funding stimulus money.
-- Japan's tradesituation also seems to be deteriorating. Whereas previously thecountry was running big, consistent trade surpluses, it's now insteady trade deficit.
-- The US economy is strengthening. This isn't about the yen, butit does help boost what the yen is being compared to, the dollar. Astrengthening economy helps contribute to rising US interestrates,which will help the US dollar.
-- There's a beliefthat the endgame is in sight for the Fed to start ending itsultra-easy monetary policy. Things aren't going to change overnight,but at the current pace of economic improvement, the Fed's goalscould be hit in late 2014, which is earlier than the previous 2015tightening guidance. A tighter US monetary policy would benefitthe dollar against the yen.
-- End of the Eurozonecrisis. Japanese assets had been seen as "safe-havens" toflee too during the crisis. With the Eurozone crisis ending, thatsafe-haven bid begins to deteriorate.
-- Fear of war? Also thanks to Japan's new PM Shinzo Abe, thecountry is likely to adopt an even more aggressive, militaristicstance towards China. One professor in Australia predicts war. AsMatt Yglesias notes, any war (or war preparations) would likely befunded by aggressive money creation. More yen weakening.
-- Japan's economy isbad. In addition to all that, the economic data in Japan isdeteriorating again, creating more reason for the Bank of Japan to donew measures.
One interesting trendis that a lot of these developments are fairly new. Sothere's a confluence of a lot of stuff happening right now.
Two other notes:
One is that this isn'tnecessarily a bad thing at all. A weaker yen is itself a form ofstimulus, and should help the country's domestic manufacturers.Nomura recently upgraded the Japanese automakers specifically onthis, and in general the Nikkei has been on a total tear.
The other is that noneof the above have anything to do with the typical Japan beararguments about massive national debt and bond collapse. Those thingsthat people freak out about don't have much to do with things.

Read more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-yen-has-been-getting-crushed-2012-12#ixzz2GNTvwDH0

Copper Blocks Antibiotic Resistence

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This is actually important although how it can be integrated into theat risk environments is going to be a challenge. The simple fact isthat copper requires incessant cleaning and polishing. Perhaps theproper solution is to use a normal alloy such as bronze and to allowthe working surface to fully oxidize into its natural green bluecolor. Then normal cleaning is sufficient.
It will still be hard to keep the clean freaks from turning it into ashining object just because they can. Like the military, it willbecome necessary to order folks to not shine their combat boots.
The revelation here though is that gene transfer occurs outside thehost on working surfaces and this provides a clear reason to makeworking surface naturally antibiotic. Copper is the low hangingfruit.
Copper restrictsthe spread of global antibiotic-resistant infections
by Staff Writers
Southampton, UK(SPX) Dec 11, 2012
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Copper_restricts_the_spread_of_global_antibiotic_resistant_infections_999.html

New research from theUniversity of Southampton has shown that copper can preventhorizontal transmission of genes, which has contributed to theincreasing number of antibiotic-resistant infections worldwide.
Horizontal genetransfer (HGT) in bacteria is largely responsible for thedevelopment of antibiotic-resistance, which has led to an increasingnumber of difficult-to-treat healthcare-associated infections(HCAIs).
The newly-publishedpaper, which appears in the journal mBio, shows that while HGT cantake place in the environment, on frequently-touched surfaces, suchas door handles, trolleys and tables, which are made from stainlesssteel - copper prevents this process from occurring and rapidly killsbacteria on contact.
Lead author ProfessorBill Keevil, Chair in Environmental Healthcare at the University ofSouthampton, explains: "Whilst studies have focussed on HGT invivo (an experiment that is done in the body of a living organism),this work investigates whether the ability of pathogens to persist inthe environment, particularly on touch surfaces, may also play animportant role. Here we show prolonged survival of multidrugresistant Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae on stainlesssteel surfaces for several weeks.
However, rapid deathof both antibiotic-resistant strains and destruction of plasmid andgenomic DNA was observed on copper and copper alloy surfaces, whichcould be useful in the prevention of infection spread and genetransfer."
Showing thathorizontal transmission of genes (for example, those governingantibiotic resistance) occurs on touch surfaces, supports theimportant role of the environment in infection prevention.
Professor Keevilsummarises: "We know many human pathogens survive for longperiods in the hospital environment and can lead to infection,expensive treatment, blocked beds and death.
"What we haveshown in this work is the potential for strategically-placedantimicrobial copper touch surfaces to not only break the chain ofcontamination, but also actively reduce the risk of antibioticresistance developing at the same time. Provided adequate cleaningcontinues in critical environments, copper can be employed as animportant additional tool in the fight against pathogens."
Beyond the healthcareenvironment, copper also has a wider role to play in infectioncontrol. Professor Keevil explains: "Copper touch surfaces havepromise for preventing antibiotic resistance transfer in publicbuildings and mass transportation systems, which lead to local and -in the case of jet travel - rapid worldwide dissemination ofmulti-drug resistant superbugs as soon as they appear.
"People withinadequate hand hygiene could exchange their bugs and differentantibiotic resistance genes just by touching a stair rail or doorhandle, ready to be picked up by someone else and passed on. Coppersubstantially reduces and restricts the spread of these infections,making an important contribution to improved hygiene and,consequently, health."
Installations ofcopper touch surfaces have already taken place across the UK andaround the world, harnessing copper's ability to continuously reducebioburden and consequently the risk of HCAI transmission.
This research offersadditional evidence to deploy copper (and copper-containing alloysthat benefit from the metal's antimicrobial properties) in the formof touch surfaces to provide extra protection alongside standardhygiene practices.

Corruption Will Kill Regime, But Not China

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 China does have the mechanisms in place to transition out of oneparty rule just as has happened throughout South East Asia. In mymind, it is not if it will happen but a question of when it willhappen.
The good news here is that it appears that the cadres will beforgiven for now and allowed to retire gracefully. This reallyallows a clean sweep from top to bottom and the introduction of freshblood.
This also makes it an ideal time to introduce democratic reforms. Butif not, the way is quite clear for a future transition. Everyonewaits out the decade and prepares for the next transition. Sooner orlater the people's will will be accepted slow as it may seem.
The miracle of China, not seen elsewhere, is that it is so large thateven the most egregious thief is small potatoes. This means all ourassumptions are suspect. I wonder how many thieves actually made thecalculation that they could be forgiven?
Chinese Economist:Corruption Will Kill Regime, But Not China
By Veronica WangDecember 27, 2012
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-economist-corruption-will-kill-regime-but-not-china-329161.html

A former PekingUniversity professor, Zhang Weiying, told a public forum last weekhow corruption could be solved in China, and emphasized that it onlyposes a serious threat to the Communist Party and not the nation. 
Zhang, who was head ofthe Guanghua School of Management, spoke about the “twodifficulties of anti-corruption” at The Observer Forum in Beijingon Dec. 19, where China’s new political and economic direction forthe next decade was discussed following the leadership change inNovember.
Zhang commented thatdeeply entrenched corruption in the Chinese Communist Party has beenworsening, and he believes few officials would be found free ofcorrupt behavior if they were all put under investigation. 
He therefore proposedusing the recent 18th National Congress as the start of a newtimeline, and suggested only punishing those Party officials whocontinue to commit such crimes, while overlooking those who havecorrected their behavior since the start of the new leadership. 
In reference to thereport of the 18th National Congress, Zhang opposed former leader HuJintao’s comment that if corruption continues, it will ruin boththe Party and the country, saying only the Party will be threatenedif the new anti-corruption campaign is unsuccessful.
Recently, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, WangQishan, was appointed as the Secretary of the Central Commission forDiscipline Inspection (CCDI). This was widely seen as an attempt toemphasize the importance being given to the campaign. 
Insiders revealed thisas the new Party leader Xi Jinping’s idea because the two men hadalready reached a mutual understanding on anti-corruption efforts. 
Analysts believe thatWang, who previously had portfolios in finance and economics, willcontinue his forceful style in his role as CCDI secretary, and islikely set to focus on corruption in China’s financial sphere—wherethere is plenty of it.

Ball Lightening Clarified

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This actually works. Such a mass of heavy ions would have a naturalchannel to follow down to the ground generated by the lighteningstroke itself and this would even draw it down and likely shape itsdimensionality.
We have all naturally presumed that ball lightening consisted of ablob of electrons but that never made any sense at all. Massconfinement is certainly sufficient to allow a twenty second dwelltime.
This problem has been kicking around forever and every high schoolphysics student knows of its existence. Bravo!
Goodness, Gracious,Great Balls of Lightning!
Oct. 18, 2012 —Australian scientists have unveiled a new theory which explains themysterious phenomenon known as ball lightning.
Sightings of balls oflightning have been made for centuries around the world -- usuallythe size of a grapefruit and lasting up to twenty seconds -- but noexplanation of how it occurs has been universally accepted by science
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121019102800.htm

Sightings of balls oflightning have been made for centuries around the world -- usuallythe size of a grapefruit and lasting up to twenty seconds -- but noexplanation of how it occurs has been universally accepted byscience. Even more mysterious are sightings of balls of lightningforming on glass and appearing in homes and in airplanes.
CSIRO scientist JohnLowke has been studying ball lightning since the sixties. He's neverseen it, but has spoken to eye witnesses and in a new scientificpaper, he gives the first mathematical solution explaining thebirth of ball lightning -- and how it can pass through glass.
Previous theories havecited microwave radiation from thunderclouds, oxidizing aerosols,nuclear energy, dark matter, antimatter, and even black holes aspossible causes. Lowke disputes these theories.
He proposes balllightning is caused when leftover ions (electric energy), whichare very dense, are swept to the ground following a lightning strike.As for how they pass through glass, he says this is a result of astream of ions accumulating on the outside of a glass window and theresulting electric field on the other side excites air molecules toform a ball discharge.
According to Lowkeball lightning is rare, but it has been witnessed in Australia manytimes. People just don't realize what it is when they see it.

Immaculate Conception to Genetic Deception

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The fundamental problem with spiritual guidance is that there isgenerally no guidance. You are asked to go figure it out foryourself and what is provided anyway is far too unwittingly selfserving. On your own it is way to easy to read personal prejudicesinto spiritual texts long before it is possible to grasp a differentstate of being. You must not only read the words but at the sametime shift your perspective. Good luck when I can attest that thereis little that is more difficult.
I crafted a manuscript titled Paradigms Shift in which I change theintellectual framework for a number of topics. What I observed frommy readers was that they were quite all right when on ground in whichthey had scant knowledge, yet on ground in which they had gonethrough appropriate course work their resistance rose exponentially. I want you to think about that. Your brain will resist new knowledgeand you must faithfully massage new ideas until they become easy andobvious. This will not happen unless an authority tells you to.
Read this item. What this will do is instruct that spiritualconsciousness exists and that its proper nurturing entails learning acompletely different mindset until it becomes natural. Accessing thespiritual realm is difficult, but it can be done by everyone whoworks at it. What Jesus demonstrated is that it can even to a degreeunsuspected be also applied directly like a tool.
This gift was provided us in GOD's dispensation to humanity upon beentasked with Terra-forming the Earth. If we ever fully knew how touse it, the knowledge has been largely lost or ignored out ofignorance. That is my new insufferable idea for the day.
From I
December 24, 2012
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2012/12/24/from-immaculate-conception-to-genetic-deception/

The Christconsciousness with which humanity is endowed, and which tookphysical form in Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago, is arevolutionary gift. It has the power to transform, to heal and topenetrate the darkness with light.  However, it is a gift whichstill remains largely sealed away from human consciousness,covered over by the cult of consumption and religious orthodoxy
What this greatprophet of 2,000 years past was able to teach and to demonstratewas that such a state of (higher) consciousness ‘exists’ and hasalways existed; and that it is freely available to us all, being anincontrovertible part of our very DNA and of every cell andcorpuscle of our bodies.
I have chosen to usethe expression ‘Christ Consciousness’ not because it is any moresignificant than other high prophetic teachings, but because asignificant portion of Western society’s spiritual inheritanceis founded on the words and works of the prophet Jesus Christ. Suchteaching has the role of passing-on in the earthly plain of existencethat which originates in the great cosmic plain of existence, ofwhich we and our planet are an integral part. However it has seldomsucceeded in this role, largely due to the fact that ‘religiousorthodoxy’ has contrived to take control of the spiritual realm,claiming unto itself ‘the moral high ground’ and giving itselfthe authority to censor the revolutionary quality of the originalmessage.
Every culture hasits shamans, gurus, saints and spiritual masters.Shiva, Buddha, Krishna, Mohamed and Abraham, to name just afew. All their teachings have a common theme: ‘mankind is createdin the image of God’ and the realisation and manifestation ofthis Godly state is the true goal and purpose of humanity’sexistence here on earth. They also all state that love andcompassion are central attributes of the human condition.
That is why I startedby saying that we are endowed with a revolutionary gift.
But when this Godlygift is disassociated from its human expression and consigned insteadto being the sole attribute of our Creator – then the teachings ofJesus Christ and other great prophets, become fundamentallysubverted. The revolutionary ‘divine soul seed’ which we arecalled upon to nurture into its fullness of being is insteadcarefully sanitized and locked away from the light.
Having so disposed ofour birthright, we seem to feel liberated, as though we have ridourselves of some odious burden. But all we have succeeded in doingis to wrap ourselves in a state of profound self deceptionandcall it ‘freedom’. In denying the divine inheritance – which isencoded in our genes – we effectively shut off the lines ofcommunication with our Creator and set off down the road of geneticdeception. Genetic deception, quite literally meaning: ‘an attemptto deceive our genes’.
Within the DivineCreation Plan homo sapiens has been endowed with the ability todecide his own destiny: we have ‘free will’.  Thus we humanshave evolved into the unique position of being able to reflect on ourstate of being as well as use our intellectual capacity to reason,compare and take considered action. The fact that we are born in theimage of our Creator and yet are endowed with this precious gift of‘free will’ (having control over our destinies) gives us a veryspecial responsibility. A responsibility to nurture our Godly giftinto a proper flowering and to direct the fruits of this floweringinto the amelioration of our society and natural environment, so thatthey come to reflect our state of being. But it is precisely herethat we face the greatest challenge and greatest danger.
What happens, if, inutilising this gift of free will, we decide that we prefer not torecognise and honour its source?
What happens if wefind that the intellectual power of the mind, stripped of itsbirthplace in the soul, appears to be an adequate tool for dealingwith our worldly concerns?
What happens if we putlove and compassion on the back burner, rationalising that theyhamper our competitive instincts, material drives and personalambitions?
The answer can befound by looking around us and into our history. A wilful mind,divorced from its marriage with the compassionate soul, runs amok,bequeathing itself special powers and high degrees of selfimportance. It becomes interested in splitting the atoms ofits origin and irreversibly  altering the genetic pool of natureof which it is part.
It starts to proclaimits superiority over all other life forms as well as overfellow humans.
It goes to war andmurders with cool impunity. It creates abstract ideas, denaturedversions of ‘progress’ and tunnel vision theories and practices.In short, it steers its deluded self into a blind alley from whichthe only escape is collapse and dissolution.
This seems to be wherea significant portion of humanity finds itself today; in anadvanced state of alienation and fragmentation. Divided into athousand parts and no longer able to see the whole or remember itstrue identity – who we are.
And yet for many, whenconfronted by the arrival of a newborn baby on our planet, this lossof memory is suddenly reversed. The immediate reaction is to coo atits shining innocence, its wide staring eyes and curious smile. Thisbaby seems to stir our memory – and what we are reminded of is thatwe are looking at ourselves; witnessing ourselves as an integratedwhole – without the fragmentation. We can say of this little beingthat he or she is indeed an ‘immaculate conception’; born in theimage of the Creator.  At this unguarded moment we are remindedthat our own wholeness and innocence is buried somewhere within andis crying to come out. The little spark of genius that stares us inthe face – exudes that same spark which we pushed to one side –because it failed to match the pact we made with the status quo:the pact of mediocrity, conformity and godlessness.
All that is wrong withlife today starts here.
In separatingourselves from ourselves we establish a dangerous, abstract andvirtual reality world. A world which quickly becomes recognised as‘the norm’ to be upheld as the politically correct mode ofbehaviour for ‘civilised society’. In clinical terms, it amountsto a state of paranoid schizophrenia and represents the underlyingmalaise of modern man and post industrial society in general. In thisstate of alienation, ‘scientists’ tinker with the building blocksof life and biochemists attempt to re-engineer the plant and animalkingdom, ultimately foisting their deluded experiments on mankind asa whole thereby turning our world into a vast and chaotic laboratory.Politicians look on and applaud. This is, after all ‘scientificadvancement’ and therefore not only perfectly acceptable – butdesirable. And even when it is considered possible that the motivesare more aligned with the lust for profit, power and control, there-engineering of the sacred seed is still given the go-ahead.
Mostimportant political and corporate decisions are made bythose suffering from this psychologically impaired and ‘alienated’condition. In fact wherever a top-down, corporate led hierarchy holdsthe reins of power. However, the fact that such hierarchies areallowed to establish such a controlling influence is strongproof of our own complicity and passivity. It is we who give theseschizoid individuals such powers, therefore it is we who must be heldresponsible for the outcome. It is here where one finds the mostconspicuous levels of denial; so many amongst us seem determined toavoid recognising their role in delivering the state of play we findaround us.
Those wishing torepresent their fellow human beings in high office should of course,in a good working democracy, exhibit a fair degree of wisdom andbalance. They should act diligently and responsibly in carrying outactions that affect all citizens within their arena. They should knowhow to balance head and heart, so as not to be arrogant ordomineering in their actions. They should be strong in rejecting thatwhich is harmful to people and the environment – and strong inpursuing and promoting that which encourages goodness and diversity.Above all, they should be seen to ‘practice what they preach.’But as we see, the realities of 21st century society are verydifferent.
Does this descriptionfit any one you know in the world of politics, big business oreven in academia?
What has become ofresponsible leadership in our time?
Why are so many of uswilling to turn a blind eye on the abject failings of others andthereby accept the unopposed misrule of our Countries? And where isthe voice of the church in all this?
It appears that thosewho seek to fill positions in society which give them access to thelevers of State can only get these positions by agreeing to selltheir souls to a largely unseen and shadowy ruling cabal. It is thiscabal which pulls the strings of the puppet politicians and senatorswhom we elect, and it is this cabal that sets the ‘real’ agenda:culminating in their dream of a top down, autocratic ‘new worldorder’. In the European context a “United States of Europe”.
The conclusion onedraws from all this, is that it is the denial of the divine inman which inevitably leads to the corruption and degradation ofthe human condition – and therefore of society as a whole.
It is within thissetting that nature’s seeds are themselves corrupted, as if tosymbolise the alienated state of humanity. We see this all tooclearly in deteriorating human health, closely aligned with achemically corrupted and genetically modified food chain. Oncevigorous human reproductive energy is increasingly becoming devoid oflife and is unable to achieve normal patterns of procreation.
When our true realityis denied ‘virtual reality’ replaces it. Virtual reality becomesthe new normal, embracing a world of deception, distortion andalienation. The simple practical values of yesteryear are lost to awhole host of up to the minute cyber distractions; just as the goodrobust foods that once filled our plates are lost to laboratoryinspired mixtures of chemical preservatives, colours and alteredgenes. In the brave new world ofmass food production, even nanotechinventions are on the menu; while real foods have to be irradiated(USA) and rendered inert because they might contain living bacteria.Life itself is thus reduced to a sterile, denatured package, offeredup for auction in the sanitized isles of hypermarket shopping malls.
So what about ushumans?
There are those whoforesee gene processing laboratories replacing the mother’swomb. Laboratory colour charts allowing parents to select the colourof the eyes and bioengineering  deciding the shape of the mouthand nose; even the desired emotional range could be programmed intothe design. Under such a regime ‘eugenics’ would be put rightback onto the map of ‘human advancement’. Already maleinfertility is running high in the United States and growing inEurope. Is it a coincidence that the spread of genetically engineeredfoods almost exactly matches the rapid rise in human infertility?
While the spark of ahigher purpose has briefly illuminated various phases of humanevolution, we appear to have failed to nurture this spark into thetransformational fire which would bring forth the Godly in us – andkeep it there.
And yet, 2,000 years ago, an outstanding prophet helped us tounderstand that homo sapiens is created in the image of the SupremeConsciousness (God) and that we have the potential torealise and manifest this divinity which lies within every one of our13 billion cells and which is etched into our very DNA. But wechose to downgrade our divinity and to compromise our greatness,preferring the safety of mediocrity to the risks of genius. Whatprice will we have to pay for such cowardice? What price our Faustianpact with the masters of deception?
A great price.
Yet, because Real Lifeis a sentient, coherent whole and not the fragmented and insentientstate that it appears to be, there is always the potential for apositive resolution, even to the worst crisis. Behindthepropaganda fuelled veil of Maya lies an Omnipotent realitywhich is the source of our divinity and the fecund pool of ourcreativity. We have only to access this divinity and we will beguided along the path of deeper destiny and beyond the reach of themasters of darkness.
But let ourselves beruled by the false gods who masquerade as the great and the allknowing – and we will remain locked into a covert pact with theforces of darkness. We will remain slaves to the technocratfinanciers, genetic engineers and corporate gangsters, and no signwill there be that we were born in the image of our Creator.
However, should wefind the courage to speak out and to challenge these false gods; tochallenge those religious proclamations of the church which continueto repress the revolutionary message of the great prophets-  then the new dawn will come rushing out to greet us, holdingwide its arms in welcoming joy.
Suddenly, as the lightpours in, we can see so clearly the falsities that surround us. Wecan recognise where the truth is spoken and where the words areshrouded in deceit. We can ‘see through’ the gamesmanship ofpolitical figureheads, phony academics, and false messiahs. A newworld of possibilities emerges in front of our eyes and a new senseof self empowerment rises in our souls. At that moment we can rejoiceand set sail on the seas of a higher calling, in the knowledge thatthe angels are guiding our voyage and that Luciferian guile can nolonger win our souls or control our minds.
This time has surelycome. A time foretold in testaments of old, through stories ofsearing light and apocalyptic darkness. Who will now deny that suchapocalyptic times are with us? The virus of greed, deceit, ulteriormotive and repression has reached epidemic proportions, manifestingas a pandemic on our planet. And no one can stand aside from somelevel of complicity in the shaping of these events.
Yet 2,000 years agoJesus proclaimed “The Truth shall set you free”.
Now the time has cometo act on this proclamation and do away with our complicity with allthat drags life down. There is but one overriding necessity at hand:to shake off the chains of illusion and cease to hide from the Truth.Now is the time to move forward and upward and to find the courage toconfront and to remove those obstacles that are placed in our path.We each have the joyous task of laying the stepping stones that willreach beyond the Fall. We have this power –  and weowe it to our Creator to act on it: for we are offspring of thedivine sparks of immaculate conception and not the sterile clones ofgenetic deception.
About the Author
Julian Rose is aBritish pioneer organic farmer, writer and activist. He is currentlypresident of the ‘International Coalition to Protect the PolishCountryside’ which is leading the fight against GMO in Poland. Heis author of “Changing Course for Life – Loc

A New Mayan Age Begins

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Thisis a post from the author Graham Hancock on his Face book account. What is useful here is that he lays out the importance of 3114 BC asa calender start point. The Mayans were mathematically driven ansearlier start points may have astronomical significance that lockedin other start points, but having a recent start point is natural fora rising civilization. After all we did just that for our startpoint 2000 years ago.
Atthe same time one can expect such a start point to be well enoughback so as to not foul up the record keeping and normally fivehundred years will do it. That is also about as long as mosttraditions can be sustained against the drift of language.
ThusI would reasonably suspect that the decisions on this calender tookplace around 2500 BC plus or minus a lot. This of course coincidesrather nicely with the dates I have established for the rise of theAtlantean global civilization and the building of the Great Pyramid.
Sincewe have also discovered that the geological disturbances of 1159 BCwere pretty serious in and around the Mayan world, it becomesunsurprising that the bulk of archeological data is all post 1159 BC. I suspect that some coral reefs need to be cored to see if there isfoundational stonework to be found.
Inthe meantime we have zip evidence for an extended Mayan historicalperiod or more properly a Mesoamerican extended historical periodalthough it has been shown that the Mexico city complexes evolved inresponse to earlier coastal Olmec building and there we have datathat takes us to around 1200 BC. Still not as far back as I wouldlike, but certainly close enough to support a thousand yearadditional prehistory. It is just that I would really like to see apyramid that is pre 1159 BC. Yet they could well have all beenthrown down to be simply torn apart to construct new structures afterthe Atlantean catastrophe.
It isstill remarkably coincidental that we are entering a new calender agejust as our own global civilization prepares to reach its apogeewhich most of my readers will in fact experience even if it is notrecognized.
Weare about to transition into a new economic order that honors allhuman life and optimizes the terraforming of this planet. This bloghas largely shown the way with minor details to be policed up. Ourultimate active surface population is around 100 billion souls andlikely ten times that in terms of sub surface populations. I putthese numbers out to remind us just how much real work remains to bedone. Yet it all starts now at the beginning of this new age of over5,000 years.
Theactual build out will take around five centuries though. This ismore than enough to complete our surface work and expand thepopulation. For those who do not understand this blog's coreconcept, it is that terraforming is done through application of themodel farm that is operationally self sufficient and ecologicallybalanced and neutral in terms of inputs and outputs.
GrahamHancock
Tomorrow is the firstday of the new year, a time for resolutions, a time for hope, a timeto turn over a fresh page. Since the Mayan calendar is cyclical, it'sappropriate to remember that 21 December 2012 marked the end of agreat cycle of the human story -- in the Mayan view of things -- andthat we are now embarked upon a new cycle or epoch. The last 13Baktuns of the Long Count began in 3114 BC, which is 5126 years ago.It is interesting that these five millennia have seen the rise of thebig centralised hierarchical state, big, centralised, hierarchicalreligions and gigantic global corporations. I think everyone is awarethat the system based on those institutions is broken and that thesevast, impersonal bureaucracies have had their day -- so in a way theMayan calendar is right. Something new will have to emerge, somethingmore human, something with more respect for individual sovereignty,something -- hopefully -- that will be built on love rather than onhatred, fear and suspicion. With individual sovereignty comesindividual responsibility so I guess what we make of our world in thenext 5126 years is very much up to us. Happy New Year!