From meditations and prayers, the messages for 2012 are: continuous clearing and shielding of lower energies is essential right now. Do this daily. Shield yourself vigilantly. The dichotomy of darkness and light is at a peak right now, like high noon when the shadows appear the darkest. The darkness has an effect similar to ticks upon a dog, and must be addressed and not ignored . . . or it will grow bigger. Don’t fear the darkness, as this just gives fuel and power to it (which in spiritual truth is nothingness). The darkness is afraid because it knows that its time to rule is drawing to a close. We must also devote daily time to praying for everyone’s abundance, health, and happiness. Your contribution to the light is essential right now. Everyone’s participation in acknowledging the non-material world is essential. Daily prayer for world peace is extremely helpful. You can make a huge positive difference by praying for everyone.
The fisherman who caught the shark is keeping his specimen.
CREDIT: Marcela Bejarano
As the year draws to a close, here’s a look back at some of the weirdest animal discoveries of 2011. From transvestite birds to zombie caterpillars and our own set of animal superheroes, it’s been a wacky ride.
#1. A-Flock-Alypse?
This year started with a bang as scores of birds fell from the skies in January. The “aflockalypse” as it became called, harkened back for many to their first time watching Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “The Birds,” but experts agreed that the birds’ and fish’s mass deaths were just coincidental.
It started with the mysterious deaths of thousands of blackbirds in Arkansas and Louisiana around New Years’ eve; this was followed by several reports of dead fish washing ashore and many more “massive” animal die-offs. In the end, the bang with which it all started was probably fireworks, which initially killed the blackbirds. Researchers agree the best explanation so far is the fireworks’ noise and lights may have scared or disoriented the birds, causing them to fatally injure themselves flying into buildings, water towers and trees. The wide pickup of the original blackbird story probably set off the media attention later stories received, but these kind of die-offs are normal, researchers and ecologists say.
#2. Zombie Ants
The year was a big one for zombie insects. Reports of mind-controlled ants and caterpillars were enough to creep out even the least squeamish.
In May, in the journal BMC Ecology, researcher David Hughes from Pennsylvania State University reported that a parasitic fungus infects forest ants to fulfill its bidding. The fungus fills the ant’s head with fungal cells and changes its muscles so the ant can grab a leaf in a death grip just when and where the fungus wants it — specifically, the zombie ants all bite down around noon, then all die together around sunset, like some weird fungus-addled ant cult. The fungus then bursts out of the ants’ heads and spreads its spores to its next unwitting victim.
Another report in September found the genetic culprit that sends caterpillars to the treetops, where they liquefy and rain infectious death down on their peers. The virus that zombifies these gypsy moth caterpillars also makes sure they grow as large as possible so they spread infectious viruses far and wide, said study researcher Kelli Hoover, of Pennsylvania State University. They also send the caterpillars crawling up trees in the middle of the day, when they are most vulnerable to bird attacks.
#3. The mouse with two dads
In a wacky feat of genetic engineering and a stem-cell switcheroo, researchers created the first mouse baby from the genes of two male mice — a mouse that literally has two dads. The mousey Dr. Frankensteins, from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, turned cells from Dad No. 1 into X-only stem cells, which they injected into an egg to make a female mouse, which was then fertilized by sperm from Dad No. 2.
The study, published in the journal Biology of Reproduction, is the first step to making human children from two men, though that is a long way away. This mean feat of genetic engineering was also dubbed by LiveScience reporter Stephanie Pappas as “scientific progress at its cutest” when she met the mice in person.
#4. Animals with superhero senses
Scientists aren’t the only ones turning miraculous tricks this year. Mother Nature has a few up her sleeve as well. Animal super senses turned up in dolphins and vampire bats in 2011, and even one possible sixth sense in humans made an appearance.
Researchers at Rostock University in Germany discovered that the common Guiana dolphin has a special sixth sense: It can sense electric fields with a special organ on its snout. While the ability is common in fish, the dolphins are the first placental mammal (as opposed to a marsupial mammal) found to sense electricity, which they probably use to find fish in the shallow, murky waters they call home.
In other odd animal senses, researchers discovered in August that the vampire bat can “see” heat from veins and arteries using a special organ on its nose that is incredibly sensitive to heat. The bat uses this organ to find blood meals and to bite the right part of the skin: A mouthful of hair is unappetizing to these little bloodthirsty critters.
A possible extra human sense also made an appearance this year. A human protein, when expressed in fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields. The researchers caution that the protein might not work that way in humans, though. Sorry, Magneto wannabees.
#5. Strange sperm
It may not be super, but strange sperm abounds in the animal kingdom.
Studies in naked mole rat sperm show that these weird little creatures also have weird little sperm. In any other animals their sperm samples wouldn’t pass quality control, but these eusocial underground rodents make do just fine with their mutant sperm, a study published in the December issue of the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows.
Ducks also have special sperm properties, another 2011 study shows. Their sperm contains antibiotics that might protect them and their mates from sexually transmitted infections. The brighter their bill is, the better their sperm is at killing off bacterial invaders, suggests the study published in April in the journal Biology Letters.
#6. More strange sex
Sperm wasn’t the only weird animal-sex finding of 2011. Multiple studies found everything from hermaphroditic bulldogs to sexually confused fish and birds.
The bulldog Bijou is genetically female, but has some physical properties of a male dog, including a prostate gland and testicles. Researchers are stumped as to why this pup, and another bulldog, Tana, had these male characteristics without male genes.
Other animal he-shes are also stumping researchers this year: A cardinal with half-male, half-female coloring seems to be a genetic anomaly, with half-female and half-male cells. Several sex-changing birds also made the news in 2011, including a female chicken that transformed into a rooster in the United Kingdom over a few weeks time. Researchers think that a tumor or cyst may have caused the switch.
Some birds of prey don female plumage, but don’t actually change gender. These transvestite marsh harriers use such sexual mimicry to fool other males into leaving them alone, researchers reported this year.
#7. Cyclops shark
Strange sex-changing animals weren’t the only weirdoes nature threw at us this year. A Photoshop-quality image of a fetal shark with one eye stunned researchers and cybergawkers alike when it made the news in October. The one-eyed fetus was cut from the belly of a shark in the Gulf of California, but would not likely have survived outside of the womb.
“This is extremely rare,” shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana of Mexico’s Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog in July. “As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded.” [Photos of Cyclops Shark]
Other, less scientifically based reports of Yeti nest sightings and hair samples from Russia splashed the news this year. And scientists reported finding the lair of a ‘Kraken’ sea monster, though the interpretation of the finding has not been substantiated.
#8. Fishy sexual harassment
Several advancements in the field of fishy sexual harassment made the news this year, indicating that Trinidadian guppies seem to have more gossipy drama and sexual tension than an episode of “Sex in the City.”
A study published in October showed that when a harassing male chases down female guppies, they are more likely to get in fights with other females. The sexually charged males stress these females out so much they end up turning on each other, the researchers said.
Another study showed that these same guppies, when harassed, pair up with prettier females, whose presence draws attention away from themselves.
#9. Animals with protective poisons
Scientists have long understood that plants use poison to defend themselves, but traditionally animals are thought to defend themselves with weapons like sharp teeth and claws. In 2011, a number of animals were discovered to wield poisons of their own.
By utilizing the same plants that African tribesmen use to poison their arrows, the furry fury known as the African crested rat can incapacitate and even kill predators many times its size, research published in August found. The rat chews poisonous bark and spits the poison onto its furt coat, which has specialized hairs with pores to absorb the animal’s poisonous spit, which protects them against predators like dogs.
Another odd animal poison discovered in 2011 is the cyanide-sweating millipede discovered in September. When disturbed, the bugs emit a toxic cyanide goo and foul-tasting chemicals that deter predators looking for a snack. Luckily for its predators this odd insect also has a nighttime glow to warn predators of its poisonous secretions
#10. The loudest genitals
One loud little insect makes a big call, from an unorthodox organ. Research published in July indicates that by using its genitals, the water boatman makes the loudest song for its size: At less than one-tenth of an inch (2.3 millimeters) long, it calls out to mates at over 99 decibels, as loud as an orchestra. The odd insect’s song from the depths of a river can even be heard along its banks, the researchers said, and is likely created when the animal rubs its genitals against ridges on its body, though the scientists aren’t sure how the sound gets so loud.
We all know that popular New Year’s resolutions involve dieting, exercise and the nixing of bad habits. But what if we could fix things we didn’t even know were wrong with us?
Even good people have mental weaknesses. Just ask psychologists, whose research often turns up sour news on the human psyche. We can be jealous and arrogant, willing to look the other way when horrible things are going on, and even the nicest of us harbor subtle racial bias.
In our best New Year’s fashion, we asked social scientists to tell us what they see as the worst hidden weaknesses of humans — and whether there’s anything we can do to overcome them. Their responses suggest that this year, we should all resolve to see things from others’ perspectives.
We Fear the Other
One unflattering trait we share with many other animals is Fear of the Other, which is just the flipside of a rather clinging, excessive and obsessive love of (Just Like) Me. Social psychologists call this “in-group” bias; cognitive psychologists see its advantages in fluent, speeded-up processing of the familiar. We’re long used to who we are, and so no real thought is necessary to deal with ourselves. Thus, in order to preserve our precious laziness of thought, we heavily invest in surrounding ourselves with people just like us. We segregate into neighborhoods and work and leisure environments where any others closely approximate us in age, race, income, political allegiance and even sexual orientation or the accepted type of facial hair.
The consequence is that we never get to meet anyone who isn’t like us. This, in turn, leads to failing to imagine any Other, and to a loss of desire to even consider the Other as someone who exists, a real human being just like us, except not just like us. At its most innocent, all this fencing-in creates little upticks in closed-mindedness inside one person’s skull — missed opportunities for jolts of fun or learning. At its worst, for instance when manipulated by clever demagogues who realize that nothing binds us together more than fear of that ultimate other, the imagined enemy, it leads to the Holocaust, Vietnam, Rwanda, Darfur, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and so on.
What to do? Go visit. Uncozy yourself. Get a move on. Practice loving-kindness with someone truly other. (If you’re in academia, maybe take your Republican-voting pariah colleague out for lunch, and listen for a change.) Or, at the very least, next time you find yourself at lunch agreeing with everyone’s astute observations, do realize: “Well, duh.”
— Paul Verhaeghen, professor of cognition and brain science at Georgia Tech
We indulge in ill-informed stereotypes
We’ve been busting myths about women since the 1960s; it’s time we bust some myths about men. Single in America, a 2011 national study of singles based on the U.S. census and conducted by Match.com (and myself), does this in spades.
This study clearly shows that men are just as eager to marry; 33 percent of both sexes want to say “I do.” Moreover, men in every age group are more eager to have children: 51 percent of men age 21 to 34 want kids, while 46 percent of women in this age range yearn for offspring. Men are less picky about a partner, too. Fewer men “must have” or regard it as “very important” to have a mate of the same ethnic background (20 percent of men versus 29 percent of women); and fewer say they “must have” or regard it as “very important” to have a partner of the same religion (17 percent of men versus 28 percent of women). And get this: Men experience love at first sight more often; just as many men under age 35 believe you can stay married to the same person forever (84 percent); and in a committed relationship, men are less likely to want nights out with friends (23 percent versus 35 percent of women); less eager to keep a separate bank account (47 percent versus 66 percent of women); and less keen to take a vacation on their own (8 percent versus 12 percent). [Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom and Beyond]
I study the brain in love. My colleagues and I have put over 80 men and women into a brain scanner (MRI), and we found no gender differences in romantic passion. This Single in America study tells it like it is: Men are just as eager to find a partner, fall in love, commit long term and raise a family. And the sooner journalists (particularly those writing for women’s magazines), social scientists (particularly those convinced that men are evil), TV and radio talk-show hosts, and all the rest of humanity that berates men begin to embrace these findings, the faster we will find — and keep — the love we want.
— Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist at Rutgers University and the chief scientific advisor of Match.com
We go with our gut
The emerging view in psychology is that morality is something we feel more than think. Rather than reasoning our way to decide what is right and what is wrong, there is now overwhelming evidence to suggest that moral evaluations are “gut” reactions that we justify after the fact with what seem like principled arguments. This simple truth is the source of both humankind’s most ennobling acts of kindness and some of its most-callous and malicious misdeeds.
When victims of misfortune are close to us — when we can see and feel their suffering — we are capable of incredible generosity and self-sacrifice. When our connection to victims is less visceral, however, even when we “know” full well of their suffering in a
cognitive sense, we are often unmoved by their plight and able to rationalize our inaction. Heinous acts committed by people or groups whom we love and admire can be excused as necessary or accidental, just as relatively benign acts of our enemies are often imbued with evil intent and taken as justification for retribution. Our tendency to mistake what we feel for what we think, especially in the realm of moral judgment and
decision-making, plays a central role in intergroup conflict and moral hypocrisy, and because the problem lies as much in our guts as in our minds, it is a challenging weakness to overcome.
My suggestion to friends is to turn the emotional table by submitting judgments to the “shoe on the other foot test.” When faced with a difficult moral choice, ask yourself how you would feel and what you would do if a victim of misfortune was your loved one, or the perpetrator of some morally questionable act was you.
— Peter Ditto, professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine
We lack empathy
In my view, the most pervasive limitation in people is the ability to accurately understand the feelings and needs of others, and to fully appreciate their own impact on other people.
This ability is typically conceptualized in terms of “empathy,” “emotional intelligence,” “social intelligence” or “interpersonal intelligence,” and it clearly varies in strength from person to person.
While I think that people broadly recognize the value of this ability for selfish gain (e.g., to be an adept communicator, or to “charm” others), it also plays a critical role in caring for others — empathy most certainly does this in motivating altruistic behavior.
As to what can be done about this limitation? Can we strengthen our ability to be in tune with others and be less focused on the self? I think it begins with endeavoring to hold to the “golden rule” that we should treat others as we wish to treated, and also by trying to imagine ourselves on the outside interacting with us — as someone else on the outside, would like who we are very much? Would we consider ourselves kind, compassionate and considerate, or self-centered, selfish and thoughtless?
In short, always try to put yourself in the other’s position before speaking or acting —sounds rather obvious and simple, but it turns out to be quite a bit more difficult than one might think, and I believe a persistent challenge in our interpersonal relationships, both casual and close, that we face throughout our emotional and intellectual development.
— Jordan Litman, psychologist at the University of South Florida
We act out of self-preservation
One of the most disturbing things I have learned about people is that they are very self-protective, sometimes at the expense of others. My research in sexual harassment demonstrates that people will blame others in a manner that protects their own interests. People who unconsciously find themselves to be similar to victims of sexual harassment will assign a relatively stronger level of blame to sexual harassers. This is not particularly disturbing; what is disturbing is that people who unconsciously find themselves to be similar to sexual harassers tend to let people off the hook for sexual harassment and even go so far to blame the victims of the harassment. They seem to kick these people (typically women) when they are down. This added insult to injury compounds the negative psychological effects of harassment.
Furthermore, the reason for blaming victims of harassment may relate to the same reason they harass in the first place — an inability to see the perspective of others. Harassers and those similar to harassers cannot really see the world from the perspective of other people. They find their own behavior to be normal, acceptable in part because they simply cannot or refuse to see what it does to other people. If you were to boil this message down to a New Year’s resolution, I would say to always try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes before you do something stupid. It’s amazing what people will do without considering others’ feelings.
— Colin Key, professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Martin
A video shot by a Canadian man appears to show clouds taking the shape of a man’s face.
CREDIT: denisfarmer
Every year, dozens of weird new stories and surprising scientific findings grab headlines across the world. From clouds that looked like Abraham Lincoln to doomsday predictions to research on the psychological roots of alien abductions, 2011 didn’t disappoint. Here, a sampling of the weirdest stories of the year:
For unknown reasons, 2011 saw a rash of reports of Serbian children who were, supposedly, magnetic.
Lots of funny stuff was spotted in the skies. A swarm of insects in Iowa formed what’s known as a “bugnado,” and clouds in Canada closely resembled Abraham Lincoln’s profile.
Dozens of bizarre Guinness World Records standards were set in 2011, but this one got the most double takes: The world’s largest bra was unveiled in London. It was size 1222B. Oh, and the world’s hairiest girl was crowned.
And finally – disgustingly – racehorse owners in New Zealand were given permission to sell stallion semen as an energy drink. Drinking it will give you “as much zizz as a stallion for a week afterwards,” one vendor claimed.
Outdoorsy Colorado remained the slimmest state in America in 2011.
CREDIT: Marcin Moryc, Shutterstock
A lengthy job search promotes worry, stress and anger, but a bad job is worse for happiness than no job at all.
Those findings are on the Gallup polling agency’s list of most compelling findings about health and happiness in 2011. The agency queries tens of thousands of Americans every year about their health, well-being and happiness. The resulting Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is a day-by-day measurement of America’s mental state. Here’s what Gallup’s editors say intrigued them the most this year:
1. Long job searches are bad for well-being
The longer Americans search for jobs, the unhappier they are with their lives, according to a Gallup poll analysis released in February. Only 34 percent of unemployed Americans who had been looking for work for at least 11 weeks said they were “thriving” in life, compared with 47 percent of those who had been looking for 10 weeks or less. Sending out more job applications with no luck had a similar effect: Half of people who had sent out fewer than 10 applications said they were thriving, compared with 32 percent of those who had sent out more.
2. More Americans now normal-weight than overweight
For the first time in three years, more Americans qualified as “normal weight” than “overweight,” according to poll data released in October. That poll found 36.6 percent of Americans had a body mass index (BMI) placing them in the “normal” category, compared with 35.8 percent who were classified as overweight.
Still, 25.8 percent of Americans qualified for the more severe condition of being obese, defined by a BMI of 30 or higher. BMI is calculated using weight and height. That meant the majority of Americans – 61.6 percent – are still in weight ranges that put them at higher risk for health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]
3. Fewer young adults go without health insurance
A growing number of young Americans had health coverage in 2011, thanks to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26. Since that rule went into effect in 2010, Gallup found, the number of uninsured 18- to 25-year-olds without insurance dropped by 3.8 percentage points, to 24.2 percent.
However, the proportion of 26- to 64-year-olds without insurance increased over the same time period, from 18.1 percent to 19.9 percent. Overall, the survey found, 17.4 percent of Americans lacked health insurance in the second quarter of 2011.
4. Colorado is America’s skinniest state
An August Gallup report revealed that Colorado, with an obesity rate of 20.1 percent, remains the skinniest of the states. West Virginia had the heftiest population, with 34.3 percent of its people obese. That’s the highest rate Gallup has measured since it began obesity tracking in 2008.
Although Colorado is relatively svelte today, its current population would be the fattest in America if the state were to travel back in time 20 years. In 1991, not a single state reported an obesity rate of more than 20 percent.
5. Americans struggle to afford food
Obesity rates aside, Americans actually had a harder time affording food and other basic necessities in 2011 than in recent years. When asked if they always had enough money to buy food in the last year, 79.8 percent of Americans said yes, the lowest number since November 2008. At that time, the start of the economic crisis, 79.4 percent of Americans said they never struggled to afford groceries.
The reasons for these patterns is not entirely clear, Gallup reported in November.
6. “Suffering” holds steady
Four percent of Americans said in September that their lives were so bad that they were “suffering,” a number that has held steady for 2½ years. That’s one of the lowest rates in the world, Gallup reported in October. Perhaps unsurprisingly, income and suffering were correlated, with people making less than $24,000 a year about six times more likely to describe themselves as suffering as those with incomes over $90,000 a year.
7. Employers are offering less health coverage
Employer-based health insurance is on the decline in America, with only 44.5 percent of Americans getting health coverage through work in the third quarter of 2011. That percentage has been on a steady decline since Gallup began tracking health insurance numbers in 2008, when the rate was 49.8 percent. There has been a simultaneous increase in the number of Americans getting their health insurance from the government (up to 25.1 percent from 22.9 percent) as well as an increase in people without any insurance at all (up to 17.3 percent from 14.6 percent).
8. Americans caring for each other
While working a day job, one in six Americans also acts as a caregiver for an elderly or disabled family member, Gallup reported in July. The caregiver job was most prevalent in the 45- to 64-year-old age demographic, with 22 percent of people in that group reporting caregiving responsibilities. Women were more likely to be caregivers for a needy relative than men were, 20 percent to 16 percent.
9. Bad health costs $153 billion a year
Weight-related health issues and other chronic problems cause American workers to miss an estimated 450 million days of work more each year than normally healthy workers, Gallup reported in October. That absenteeism costs more than $153 billion in lost productivity annually.
Normal-weight workers without chronic health conditions experience about 4 days a year when health interferes with their normal activities. Workers who are overweight and obese with one or two chronic conditions average 13 “unhealthy” days a year, while overweight or obese workers with three or more chronic conditions report 42 unhealthy days annually.
Workers do not take all of these “unhealthy” days as sick days, but Gallup researchers calculated that workers miss about one day of work for every three unhealthy days they experience.
10. A bad job is worse than no job
Workers who are emotionally disengaged from their jobs view their lives more negatively than workers who have no job at all, Gallup reported in March. Forty-two percent of the people who said they felt disconnected from their work and workplaces described themselves as “thriving” in life, compared with 48 percent of the unemployed. Workers who were happily engaged and enthusiastic with work were happiest in life. Of that group, 71 percent said they were thriving.
Earthquake overview : A massive earthquake occurred in the hot solid mantle of the earth. Due to the focal depth of 370 km this earthquake has been felt all over Japan. The earthquake was however harmless due to the weakened impact.
Intensity map courtesy JMA Japan
Update : The hypocenter of this earthquake was far too deep to generate a tsunami.
Update : Values of other seismological agencies
EMSC : 7.0 at 365 km
GEOFON : 6.7 at 361 km
CEN : 7.0 at 360 km
The earthquake must have been felt by millions of people.
A little bit to our surprise the shaking was strongest in the greater Tokyo area (see yellow bullets on the JMA map) , although other areas in Japan felt it as a weak shaking and were located closer to the epicenter. Part of the reason will certainly be the propagation of the wave.
The earthquake was calculated to be felt as a weak shaking based on the USGS Data, however the Japanese seismological agency JMA reported a V MMI (moderate shaking). These values are approx. 4 JMA (Japanese use another seismic intensity scale)
Very strong but very deep earthquake with an hypocenter (focal depth) in the hot solid mantle of the earth. Based on calculations of the seismological centers, only a weak shaking will have been felt in a very wide area. The epicenter was located in between a lot of submarine volcanoes .
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 7.0 (JMA) 6.8 (USGS)
UTC Time : Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 05:27:54 UTC
Local time at epicenter : Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 02:27:54 PM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 370 km (JMA) 349 km (USGS)
Geo-location(s) :
242 km (150 miles) SW of Hachijo-jima, Izu Islands, Japan 365 km (226 miles) S of Hamamatsu, Honshu, Japan 393 km (244 miles) S of Shizuoka, Honshu, Japan 495 km (307 miles) SSW of TOKYO, Japan
for more information and updates go to: http://earthquake-report.com/2012/01/01/massive-deep-earthquake-sends-a-vibration-all-over-japan/
