science :: prayer for the mung beans

I'm on a sprout kick. I've tried sprouting broccoli seeds, alfafa seeds and mung beans.The mung beans worked fab...the rest died. So I  have been eating mung bean sprouts on everything.. You name it, everything. I've even threatened my daughter when she wanted me to bake brownies that I would be adding a few healthy additives to the mix heheh. I'll never run out of these sumptiously crunchy little delicacies since I have a huge rotating harvest of them in my pantry . . . which now looks like a laboratory.
After reading a few awesome mung bean articles, I found that not only are they mega healthy for you but that they are listening too... and responding! Yes , even the lowly mung beans has spiritual ears. Check out this interesting article written by Cynthia Sue Larson.

REALITY SHIFTS

An Element of Effective Prayer

by Cynthia Sue Larson

Have you ever wanted to know the best way to wish for something? Have you wondered whether some kinds of prayer are more effective than others... or if stress or misfortune will affect whether your wishes and prayers come true?

If you’d like answers to these questions, you’re in luck! Researchers at Spindrift found that certain kinds of prayer are more likely to promote healthy growth of mung beans, a staple of Asian cuisine and the most-consumed sprout in the world. Spindrift is a publicly supported foundation dedicated to the scientific research of consciousness and healing through silent prayer, using experimental tests on mung beans, soybeans, molds, and other organisms. Spindrift was founded by two Christian Science practitioners, Bruce and John Klingbeil.

Carefully controlled studies at Spindrift involving sprouting beans showed that there is a striking 85% difference between beans placed in ideal growing conditions and those which are under some kind of environmental stress (having too little or too much moisture, or are too hot or cold, or have too much salt). A difference has also been found between goal-directed thought (where seeds are imagined to be growing very well) and non goal-directed thought (where no specific outcome is requested or visualized).

We might guess that beans starting out in ideal growing conditions would respond best to prayer, and out-perform traumatized beans... and also that visualization would enhance the growth of these beans. What would you guess?

Interestingly, researchers at Spindrift discovered that the growth of mung beans placed in the ideal growing environment which were prayed for with either the goal-directed or non goal-directed thought did not improve as quickly and well as the stressed seeds. Healthy plants were already at the ideal rate of growth and did not improve as dramatically as the seeds that were too wet, too dry, or too salty. The stressed beans really took off! The next surprising finding was that seeds prayed for with visualization did not grow as quickly as seeds prayed for in a more general, non-directed fashion, although both kinds of prayer improved the rate of mung bean growth.

While humans are only distantly related to mung beans, it’s still refreshing to consider the possibility that some environmental stress can actually be good for our growth and development. I’ve found that when I’ve been under tremendous pressure, I’ve also experienced the most growth. Times of parenthood, death of a friend or relative, career change, divorce and moving stretch my sense of limitations, beliefs and boundaries and remind me to pray for the best outcome? - Since any more specific wish might not turn out to be best for me. Stressful times give me exciting new opportunities to break free of old patterns - much as a bean sprout breaks free of its husk to reach up to the light!

Other studies at Spindrift have shown that more frequent prayers sped the rate of growth of soybeans. This finding seems to indicate that more frequent prayers (or prayers by more people) can be dramatically more effective than solo prayer.

If you’re interested in trying out prayer experiments with beans at home, you can order your OCIA certified organic beans on the internet through http://www.sproutpeople.com, and view the Spindrift experiments at Spindrift research’s web site at http://www.xnet.com/~spindrif/. Here’s one experiment you can really sink your teeth into! You can have fun seeing the power of non-directed thought in your own home, and end up with some tasty sprouts when the experiment is over.

Cynthia Sue Larson holds a bachelor's degree in physics from UC Berkeley (1982), earned in conjunction with her pursuit of a more complete understanding of reality. Shortly after receiving her physics degree and working with scientists at the Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, she earned an MBA degree from San Francisco State University with the intention that she would be able to help scientists better manage their projects. Following completion of her MBA degree in 1984, she worked as a project manager at Citibank for seven years at the California Data Center.

Cynthia currently writes articles for Magical Blend and Parabola magazines about reality shifts - discussing everything from the physics of prayer to the connection between language and our culture's view of reality. She has taught workshops and classes to dozens of people, and communicated with thousands more on the internet through discussion forums and chats. She has been interviewed by Elliot Stein for his Stein Online talk show.

science :: smelly dreams

Next time you climb into bed for a long night's rest, consider this. What you smell affects your dreams. Studies by German Scientists suggested that if you want to have sweet dreams, then sleep with flowers in your bedroom. Or , lovin' those dark, terrifying nightmares? Then fill your bedside with stinky things like smelly sneakers, last weeks stuffed cabbage, or even the cats litter box.

The scientists concluded that wafting the smell of roses under a sleeping person’s nose gave the person pleasant emotions in their dreams and the opposite effect was had on other volunteers that had the scent of rotten eggs fill their noses while sleeping. The scientists waited until the volunteers entered REM sleep and then exposed them to high doses of smelly air for 10 seconds before rousing them out of sleep one minute later. After questioning the volunteers about their dreams, the women hardly ever dreamed of smelling anything, however, the emotional tone of the dream changed depending on the different smells.

Dr Irshaad Ebrahim of The London Sleep Centre said: "The relationship between external stimuli and dreaming is something we are all at some level aware of. This initial research is a step in the direction towards clarifying these questions and may well lead to therapeutic benefits.

Hmmm... also a great excuse to splurge on fresh flowers... for mom!

via flickr & inventorspot

spider faces :: creepy crawly, hairy, scary

Spiders - those creepy crawly, hairy, scary, eight legged creatures that send chills up your spine and evoke screams of terror in most of us - can sometimes be a little cute. Look at these faces. Ya gotta love 'em.

Well...I guess it is creepy to know that ALL of these eyes are looking at us. Next time you see a spider, take a closer look ;) - or go see more incredible arachnopods at dark roasted blend.

Spiders...JUST COOL?

science ::future body design

Corpus 2.0 by Designer Marcia Nolte foresees  how our bodies may evolve in the future . Her study is a set of  seven portraits illustrating how the human body would adapt itself to different products. And why not? Our history of evolution shows how our bodies changed according to needs for survival so it's understandable that these changes could manifest to accomodate all todays "necessities" too. Her portraits include body adaptations like a hole in the lips for smokers, and a highheel foot for the shoe-aholic.Sure - we all need these. The lovely nose ridge modification shown above, will keep out eyeglasses in place and the extended shoulder we may grow someday will easily accomodate all our handbags and mobile electronic gear.

It's an interesting proposal but sans the shoulder holder and highheel foot, the others will never happen because soon we will all have super vision and who the heck will be smoking?

Her ideas are JUST COOL though!

via dezeen

art :: don't kill the coat

The day that artist's Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr created a tiny living coat from the embryonic stem cells of a mouse, was the day that science and art were about to go haywire at MOMA. The mini jacket, a tiny art piece titled "Victimless Leather" was designed to grow into a human sized stitchless coat. It was kept on a life support system of nutrients fed into the incubator it lived in, but when it grew too big to be contained in the incubator, the right to life issue was soon to be addressed.

5 weeks into the art installation “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Paola Antonelli, curator of the show and head of MoMA’s architecture and design department, had to make the decision to turn off it's life-support which inevitably killed the ‘living creature.’

Paola said , "the jacket started growing, growing, growing until it became too big. And the artists were back in Australia, so I had to make the decision to kill it. And you know what? I felt I could not make that decision. I’ve always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I’m here not sleeping at night about killing a coat. That thing was never alive before it was grown.”

Sounds like an excerpt out of Dr. Frankenstein to me. Will killing the coat haunt the perplexed museum curator for the rest of his life? I hope not. Hey, Poala, just think of it as a ripe tomato that you plucked from the vine. This tiny living coat WAS a weird experiment - kind of creepy, kind of surreal and a little JUST COOL!

Health :: the Magic Fat Burning Chair

Don't let this magical fat burning chair fool you. From their website - " Hobart I Cool Seat is designed to reduce body weight while sitting.I-Cool, the first ever Exercise-Free, Calorie Burning seat designed to deliver significantly increased sedentary calorie burn rates.

This proprietary system, which induces accelerated calorie outtake via temperature regulation, creates a revolutionary personalized micro-environment, by allowing individual users to set their preferred temperature within the comfort of their own personal space, regardless of the climate around them."

In other words this thermostatically controlled hot seat burns your blubber by making you sweat . Frankly, I hate to sweat and the idea of sitting on what looks like a George Forman Grill doesn't appeal to me, either. Sorry, Padwa Design.

I'd rather eat salad. It's JUST COOL.

science :: how we see beautiful

Is the woman pictured on the right more attractive than the woman on the left? Do her wider-set eyes, the longer distance between her hairline and the bridge of the nose, and the rounder shape of her face make her more beautiful?

The photograph on the right was doctored by the “beautification engine” , a software program developed by computer scientists in Israel, that resconstructs the face using an algorithm involving 234 measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, or between the eyes. It was based on a study where men and women between 25 and 40 years old, viewed photographs of white male and female faces and picked the most attractive ones. The program alters the original form into a theoretically more attractive version, while maintaining what programmers call an “unmistakable similarity” to the original.

Weird... Although there isn't a huge difference in these photos, it makes it obvious why lip injections have become so popular. Read more about it at in the NY Times. It's fascinating and JUST COOL!

science :: the lasik wave of the future

The world of medicine certainly has come a long way since I was a kid! Back in the 1950's I don't think that LASIK technology was even a thought in anyone's mind. Now that I'm over the hill and am past the forty mark and my own vision is deteriorating, I have been following all the medical advances in this field with great interest. Over the past two decades we are seeing such huge strides in vision correction that it is amazing! Even since the advent of the first Lasik procedures, we are seeing new technology taking over that makes the procedure even more of an exact science. When LASIK or Laser Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis first came out in the early 1990's, the patient was dependent on the opthomologists steady hand to precisely cut and prepare the cornea for the laser correction. He did this with a tool called a handheld microkeratome blade. Now the laser has totally taken over in a two fold iLASIK procedure: In the first stage of iLASIK, wave-front technology maps the unique characteristics of the individual’s eyes. Then, an ultrafast, computer-guided laser creates a corneal flap. This laser replaces that handheld microkeratome blade used in the older forms of LASIK and makes the procedure exceptionally safe. After the flap is created, the wave-front mapping data guides a second laser for the vision correction. It's that easy and that fast.

Today even the military and NASA are using this procedure to improve the vision of specialized personnel facing extreme, physically demanding conditions. The procedure has become so successful that when the military did an evaluation of modern Lasik, the results showed that in 100 military personnel ,95% of them achieved an astounding 20/20 uncorrected vision or better. If you have poor eyesight, I would recommend that you do your homework and read up on iLasik, because there's no time like the present to improve your vision. Not only is it quick and virtually painless, but modern Lasik is now even safer than ever before. After reading all the LASIK information ,I'm certainly convinced!

science :: a plant that blogs

Welcome to the blogosphere, plant! Thats right, a potted plant posts daily news on its mood and health and is believed to be the world's first botanical blogger, proving that plants do have intelligence after all? ??

Midori-san lives on the counter of a Japanese café and writes it's posts with the help of sensors attached to its leaves. The detectors pick up electronic signals on the surface of the plant, which responds to light and human touch.

How JUST COOL is this?

via arbroath

science :: how old are you really?

I've heard about the RealAge Test for a while now but never took it. Funny, because often times when I turn on Oprah, there he is, Dr. Oz, one of the creators of the test and the website. (Didn't you hate it when he held up that disgusting yellow slab of stomach innards on one of those Oz episodes?) So I decided out of curiosity to check it out and Take the free RealAge Test. Heck, I feel young for my years, so how old could it make my real age be ? So off I went to find out my RealAge. The test calculates all your answers into what is known as your RealAge. Your RealAge is the biological age of your body, based on how well you've maintained it. It will ask you medical questions, relationship questions and more, so it really gets to know the real you. I'm not surprised that it came up with my age as being five years younger than I really am. I try to live a healthy life, eating a balanced diet, walking regularly and avoiding stress. Plus I think having positive close family ties helps a lot. Even having my little dog Poppy Petunia keeps me ageless! ;) A great part of this website too, is that it has a plethura of health information that is totally customized to your needs. In fact after I took the test, now whenever I go back to the site, all my issues that I put in the test show up with articles and tips and suggestions. Its JUST COOL! So go ahead, and Take the RealAge Test! It's Free!

science :: fly solo

I thought we humans were a complicated creation! Just take a look at this bristly, multi legged, convex-compound- eyed, amazingly and intricately designed bug creature - the Common Housefly.


Does Ma Nature know how to create or does she know how to create?

Apparently so. Houseflies are by design JUST COOL!

via likecool

animals :: the tiniest bambi

This tiny handful of innocence caught my eye because he reminds me so much of my little dog, Poppy Petunia. (Yup, that little girl on the left, that my blog is named after).
Sweet little Rupert, the baby Muntjac fawn was born 3 weeks premature after ceasarean section at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire when his mom was struck by a car and later died. But Rupert, who weighed in at a little over 17 ounces and stood just 6 inches high, was a trooper and hung in there, being tube fed and kept in an incubator on oxygen. Sadly, he didn't survive. " Dicing with death since his birth, little Rupert had all the symptoms of a premature human baby — his lungs weren’t inflating properly and problems materialized when he was unable to ingest the lamb’s milk staff had been feeding him because he needed his mother’s bacteria. " Awww, how very SAD!

Photos Les Stocker

R.I.P. Rupert

Please visit the Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital website to learn more, where they treat over 10,000 animals every year, and are open 24/7, 365 days a year to receive British wildlife casualties.

science :: bed bugs are the real deal

I never thought when I started writing this blog, I'd be writing a post about bed bugs! The only thing I ever heard about bed bugs was when my mother would tuck me in at night and sweetly wish me a " Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!". In fact, I thought bed bugs were some medieval urban legend that only existed in the dark ages. Was I wrong! On my "PayPerPost" opportunities today I ran into a VERY interesting site about these little creepy crawly creatures that are actually alive and well - and may even be living in your bed! This informative site even shows a bed bug bites picture and tells you what to look for, how to identify them, remedies to rid yourself of them and more. I admit the photos were gross but I really learned alot about these pesky little vermin which thank goodness aren't shacking up in my bed. So check out the bed bugs guide website to see if you are co-habitating with the dreaded bed bugs! I hope not, because they are JUST not COOL!

fun :: it's just your imagination

Oh how our brain likes to play tricks on us. If you stare straight at the black cross in the center a green dot that wasn't there before, will appear. And if you stare long enough at the center all the pink dots disappear and it is just the green dot blinking around in a circle.

Proof that what we see isn't always what's there. Meaning.....?? ;)

well I thought it was JUST COOL anyway!

food & science :: Snack Investigations

Which snack would you choose?

Your choice of salty snack may reveal your personality, says Alan Hirsch, MD, neurological director of the Smell & Taste Research and Treatment Foundation, in Chicago. Hirsch had 800 volunteers choose their favorite snack and fill out a personality test. Same-snackers shared personality traits a stunning 95 percent of the time. Based on degree of crunch, flavor and saltiness this is what they found. Mine came up right, did yours?

Here is the list.The only prerequisite is that you must answer the question as if you are not on a diet and as if all the choices are equally beneficial to your body. Now, just pick your favorite snack from the following list:

(1) Potato chips
(2) Tortilla chips
(3) Snack crackers
(4) Pretzels
(5) Cheese curls
(6) Meat snacks

You are:

(1) Potato chips: "Potato chip lovers are successful, high achievers who enjoy the rewards and trimmings of their success—both in business and in family life."

(2) Tortilla chips: "Perfectionists in regards to their own actions and to the community at large, people who crave tortilla chips are humanitarians who are often distressed by the inequities and injustices of society."

(3) Snack crackers: "Contemplative and thoughtful, people who prefer snack crackers base their decisions on logic rather than emotions."

(4) Pretzels: "Lively and energetic, pretzel fans seek novelty and thrive in the world of abstract concepts. They often lose interest in mundane, day-to-day routines."

(5) Cheese curls: "Formal, conscientious and always proper, the cheese curl lover can be described with one word—integrity. They will always maintain moral high ground with their family, work and romantic partners."

(6) Meat snacks: "Gregarious and social, those who reach for a savory bag of pork rinds or crave beef jerky and other meat snacks are often the life of the party. They are loyal and true friends who can always be trusted."