Bigfoot! For Real?

Recent 'Leaked' Bigfoot DNA Information

(Phantoms & Monsters)  The following information was posted at Bigfoot News - December 7, 2011 in reference to results of the nuclear DNA testing for the 'Bigfoot Steak':

The steak was sent out to ~8 different labs to be tested on a blind basis. Nuclear DNA testing was part of the process. The labs were not told what they were getting and they had no idea what they were testing. Two of the labs were said to have “figured out what it was,” whatever that means, and honestly it doesn’t make sense in the context. The cost was $~11,000 per result, so ~$90,000 was spent on DNA sequencing of the steak. This cost was apparently footed by Wally Hersom.

From all eight labs, the results came back:

1. Not human.

2. Not any known animal.

3. “Unknown primate.”

A lot of the labs made communications to Ketchum along the lines of “What in the Hell is this we are testing anyway?” “WFT?” “WTH?” “Huh?” The labs were essentially dumbfounded and befuddled by the specimen, but they reported the results in official reports as they were paid to do.

#3. is important, because although the DNA matched no known living creature, it is primate DNA. I would go further and suggest that it is hominid DNA.

#1 is extremely important and cannot be emphasized enough. This is because the skeptic blogs keep repeating over and over that Ketchum’s results are “human DNA.” I can emphatically confirm that the results for at least the Bigfoot steak from the Sierra Kills were definitely “100% non human.”

There's more!  Read the rest of the story.

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Note:  I am not going to comment on this, other than to say that if true, this is awesome news!
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Another Lake Monster?

Last week, Darlene Thompkins and her daughter were wading in the waters near the Ootsa Lake spillway, when she saw a large creature in the water.

"It looked like a huge snake head ... and it was a dark grey colour," she said.

Read the complete story.

Photo Courtesy canadafishingonline.net

Weird News & Scientific Wonders From Around The World

Rare 'white' elephant captured in Burma

A rare "white elephant", a traditional symbol of good fortune and power in south-east Asia, has been captured in Burma, state media reports.

Reports say the 2m (6.5ft) female elephant was tracked down in Maungdaw in the west of the country.

White elephants are only nominally white - they often look reddish-brown in the sun, and light pink when wet.

Analysts say the animal is likely to be brought to the capital, Naypyidaw, for the military ruler, General Than Shwe.

Read More

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Goce satellite views Earth's gravity in high definition
 

It is one of the most exquisite views we have ever had of the Earth.

This colourful new map traces the subtle but all pervasive influence the pull of gravity has across the globe.

Known as a geoid, it essentially defines where the level surface is on our planet; it tells us which way is "up" and which way is "down".

It is drawn from delicate measurements made by Europe's Goce satellite, which flies so low it comes perilously close to falling out of the sky.

Scientists say the data gathered by the spacecraft will have numerous applications.

One key beneficiary will be climate studies because the geoid can help researchers understand better how the great mass of ocean water is moving heat around the world.

The new map was presented here in Norway's second city at a special Earth observation (EO) symposium dedicated to the data being acquired by Goce and other European Space Agency (Esa) missions.

Europe is currently in the midst of a huge programme of EO development which will see it launch some 20 missions worth nearly eight billion euros before the decade's end.

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce) is at the front of this armada of scientific and environmental monitoring spacecraft.

Imaginary ball

Launched in 2009, the sleek satellite flies pole to pole at an altitude of just 254.9km - the lowest orbit of any research satellite in operation today.

The spacecraft carries three pairs of precision-built platinum blocks inside its gradiometer instrument that sense accelerations which are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth.
   
GRAVITY - A MOVING TARGET

The 'standard' acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface is 9.8m per second squared
In reality the figure varies from 9.78 (minimum) at the equator to 9.83 (maximum) at the poles

This has allowed it to map the almost imperceptible differences in the pull exerted by the mass of the planet from one place to the next - from the great mountain ranges to the deepest ocean trenches.

Read More

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'Sex' drove fossil animal traits

Several prehistoric creatures developed elaborate body traits in order to attract members of the opposite sex, according to new research.

The purpose of the exaggerated crests and sails found in many fossil animals has long been controversial.

Some scientists said sails helped to regulate body temperature and that head crests helped flying reptiles steer during flight.

Now a study say these traits became so big because of sexual competition.

The findings, by an international team of researchers, is published in the journal American Naturalist.

One of the prehistoric animals looked at by the researchers were pterosaurs - flying reptiles which became extinct at the time of the dinosaurs.

The study suggests the relative size of the head crest compared to the body of the pterosaur was too large for it to have been dedicated to controlling the animal's body temperature or its flight.

They also looked at mammal-like creatures called Eupelycosaurs, which lived before the time of the dinosaurs.

This group, which included the animals Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus, carried large elaborate "sails" along their backs.

By using known relationships between body size and metabolic activity - the process behind heat generation - in living organisms, the scientists concluded that the features were "too exaggerated" to have played a role in the control of body temperature.

Co-author Dr Stuart Humphries, from the University of Hull said: "One of the few things that haven't changed over the last 300 million years are the laws of physics.

"So it has been good to use those laws to understand what might really be driving the evolution of these big crests and sails."

His colleague, Dr Joseph Tompkins, from the University of Western Australia, commented: "The sails of the Eupelycosaurs are among the earliest known examples of exaggerated secondary sexual traits in the history of vertebrate evolution.

"Indeed, the sail of Dimetrodon is one of the largest secondary sexual traits of any animal."

Co-author Dr Dave Martill from the University of Portsmouth said: "Pterosaurs put even more effort into attracting a mate than peacocks whose large feathers are considered the most elaborate development of sexual selection in the modern day.

"Peacocks shed their fantastic plumage each year, so it's only a burden some of the time, but pterosaurs had to carry their crest around all the time."

Read More

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UFO News

UFO Researcher Dennis Whitney quits after alleged threat

Mysterious new crop circles at UFO capital of Britain in Wiltshire

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Making the big "C" a thing of the past

New blood test to spot cancer before it's development

Topnews-UK: A new testing method can be used to detect accurately the indications sent out by an individual's immune system to be something as cancerous.

Early research is of the suggestion that the indications can be detected up to five years prior to a tumor is spotted, offering doctors and patients a fundamental headstart in treating the sickness.

The test, which has been developed by clinicians in Nottingham and Kansas over a period of 15 years, is to be introduced in America in the later part of this month.

It initially had been devised, in order to detect lung cancer and is put in usage alongside conventional screening.

The technology had been developed by scientists at the University of Nottingham and Oncimmune, a medical research corporation.

The test works by recognising how the immune system reacts to the first molecular signs of cancer development.

Cancerous cells generate little amounts of protein material named as antigens, which prompts the immune system to generate great amounts of auto-antibodies.

Professor John Robertson, a Breast Cancer Specialist who led the research, said that the earliest cancer that has been seen by him and his team has been detected and yet biologically, that proved to be quite late in the road of cancer development.

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Researchers develop nanorobots to detect and kill cancer cells

Eureka-UK: Researchers are developing a molecular sized 'DNA robot' to detect disease markers on a cell, diagnose it and deliver a 'cargo of cancer killing drugs'.

Prof Milan Stojanovic at Columbia University, New York, developed the molecular sized robot to resemble a spider, with the ability to use its 'tentacles' for self propulsion. During its early development, it was capable of 'walking' though a field of DNA molecule, cutting and bonding with them to propel itself. By programming the environment with 'breadcrumbs', the robot was able to follow an established trail.

At such tiny scales, proteins like the DNA itself remained the best bet for creating such a trail. The team found the material it needed in the work of CalTech Prof Paul Rothemund, who had invented what he named DNA origami. Using 'sequence-recognition in base pairs', DNA origami are 'folded' from a long single strand of DNA, with several shorter helper strands that 'staple' the long strand into the desired shape.

Stojanovic's team made its own DNA origami bread crumbs, each measuring 2nm thick and 100nm long, programmed with a specific instruction to any walker that happens by. Together, the DNA origami bread crumbs were formed into a path that allowed Stojanovic's team to lead their DNA robots to a goal.

Continue reading

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OUHSC scientists seek vaccine that may prevent HIV, cancer

Oklahoma Daily: Examining different parts of the immune system, OU Health Sciences Center and Washington University in St. Louis researchers are creating a new vaccine using a protein instead of creating antibodies.

Using T-cells in the immune system, the T-cell vaccine can potentially treat and prevent applications for cancer, tuberculosis, HIV and several other viral diseases, according to a press release from OUHSC.

“No one has ever done this with a T-cell vaccine, so we’re learning; but now we are starting to get some traction. We are finding that a T-cell vaccine can work,” said William Hildebrand, the lead researcher on the project and microbiology and immunology professor.

Until now, vaccines have focused on generating antibodies in the immune system to prevent illness. Over time, the dependence on antibodies has prompted some viruses to evolve past the antibody immunity, lessening the effective of the vaccine to some viruses, according to the press release.

To develop the vaccine, Hildebrand and his team began by determining how the immune system distinguishes between a virus-infected or cancerous cell and a healthy cell.

“What are T-cells using to discriminate the healthy cell from a diseased cell? That is what we want to know in my lab,” he said.

Unlike antibody vaccines, a T-cell vaccine would be able to activate another arm of the immune system to target a specific virus in the body and kill it, as they are responsible with killing virus-infected cells in the body and can kill cells that become cancerous.

The goal is to create viable targets for vaccines that activate T-cells in the immune system, said Hildebrand.

“In the past, vaccine development hasn’t been extremely systematic or well-defined,” he said. “Vaccines have worked to raise protective T-cells but we don’t know how.”

Researchers started working with West Nile virus affect on the immune system since it doesn’t change like the flu or develop resistance like cancer or HIV. After developing the target, researchers at the HSC worked with colleagues at Washington University to create a vaccine, the release stated.

“We found a target, we put it into a vaccine and we got protection,” Hildebrand said. “Is it going to save everybody from West Nile Virus? No, but it saves maybe half the people.”

The process is now being repeated in other areas, such as cancer, where activating T-cells can be difficult.

“Now that we have demonstrated the feasibility of developing a T-cell-specific vaccine, we intend to use the same process to discover other reliable targets, validate them and develop additional vaccines,” Hildebrand said.

Hildebrand said there is still a lot of room to grow in this research area.

“I think it’s still version 1.0,” he said. “The final version will be version five or six.”

The research appears in the latest issue of The Journal of Immunology and is funded by grants and contracts totaling $15 million from the National Institutes of Health, according to the release.

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New Species of Lizard Found In Philppines

Dragon-sized lizard eluded science, until now
Spectacularly colored new species of monitor lizard found in the Philippines

MSNBC- A giant, spectacularly colored new species of monitor lizard has just been revealed to scientists in the Philippines.

The reptile, which is roughly 6 feet long (1.8 meters), is kin to Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards. Named Varanus bitatawa, this newly discovered species, decorated in stripes of gold flecks and armed with huge, curved claws for climbing trees, is one of only three fruit-eating monitor species in the world.

New to science, not residents
As humans continue to explore the last uncharted regions of the planet, discoveries of previously unknown species of large vertebrates have become rare. It remains doubly surprising this reptile managed to escape the attention of the many biologists that work on the heavily populated island of Luzon.

"I am most impressed that such a large, conspicuous, brightly colored species of monitor lizard escaped the notice of biologists for the past 150 years," said researcher Rafe Brown, a field herpetologist at the University of Kansas.

Still, remarkably few surveys have explored the reptile diversity of the island's northern forests. The reptile also seems highly secretive and dislikes traversing open areas.

"At the same time, we are humbled because the species is not really new — it is only new to us as Western scientists," Brown said. "In fact, resident indigenous communities — the Agta and Ilongot tribes — have known about it for many generations. If only scientists had listened to them earlier!"

Discovering the giant
Rumors of the lizard's existence floated among biologists for the past 10 years, Brown explained.

"People had taken photographs of hunters from the resident tribespeople as they were carrying the reptiles back to their homes to feed their families in 2001," Brown said.

In 2005, two different groups procured juvenile specimens. "However, both of those efforts didn't collect genetic samples, so we couldn't yet prove that it was genetically distinct and didn't just look different," Brown said. "Also, we wanted a full-sized adult to see how big it got in life."

Last summer, the researchers set out on a two-month expedition to scour the forests for the animal. "We began in July, and the rainy season began early that year, so we were just working in a deluge the whole time," Brown recalled. "Getting up those mountains with a big team of 20 people and all their equipment and gear in those muddy conditions was difficult."

"We knew it was there in the forests around us," he added. "We had seen its scratch marks on trees, we had seen its footprints along stream banks, and we had found its scat."

Near the very end of their complicated, exhausting trip, when they were low on food and out of money, they got a large adult male specimen, captured by the snares of a tribal hunter. "It was like a prize at the end of a marathon," Brown said.

The Agta and Ilongot tribes call the reptile "bitatawa," which the new scientific name for it reflects, and rely on the animal for its meat.

"I have not tasted it myself — the specimen we caught was too important for us to just try," Brown said. "I only know the hunters report it as better tasting and less smelly than the other monitor lizard in the area, a scavenger."

Science of the lizard
Although closely related to the slightly smaller Gray's monitor lizard (Varanus olivaceus), it remains separated from its cousin by a more than 90-mile (145 km) stretch that includes at least three river valley barriers. Genetic analysis confirms V. bitatawa is a new species, as do its coloration, scales, body size, and reproductive anatomy.

"Lizards keep their male reproductive organs inverted inside their bodies like a sock turned inside out, and when it's time to use them, they evert them, flipping them out of their body and filling them with fluid so they can rigidly protrude for reproduction," Brown said. "We call this a hemipenis, and lizards have two of them. They have elaborate structures that we assume are unique to each species — we think they have to fit like a lock and key, preventing hybridization between species."

Both males and females seem to possess golden stripes. "In general, reptiles are very visual, so the different coloration may serve as a signal to other members of its own species," Brown said. "Bright coloration often helps reptiles find and attract mates."

The new species is a keystone in its environment. It eats the fruit of the palm-like Pandanus trees, "and as the seeds travel through its gut, it helps remove their coats so they germinate faster, thus promoting forest growth," Brown said. "You see these trees growing in little circles like fairy rings, evidence that this lizard came by, spreading the seeds around the forest by dropping a bunch of scat."

The researchers expect the lizard to instantly become a flagship species for conservation.

"Given that rapid deforestation in the major threat to many Philippine species, especially the ones restricted to areas with tree cover, we suspect that the new species is a major conservation priority," Brown said. "We need to know the size of its home range, exactly what it eats, how long it takes to mature, how often it breeds, and details of its ecology and population structure."

Efforts to defend the lizard's forested habitat could help protect many hundreds to thousands of unrelated animals and plants as well, they added.

"It is a Philippine national treasure," Brown said.

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Stepping into the future with AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Everyone dreams of a robot helper but one that can lie? I found the "Nao" to be quite cute but rather a bit too human in the thought department.
Let's hope those lies extend only to other robots.



Link to Video

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Here's a robot that is considered the number 1 humanoid robot.

Asimo- Honda



Link to Video

More about Asimo

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Partner Robot - Toyota



Link to Video

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QRIO- Sony



Link to Video

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Though Sony terminated it's QRIO project, Honda and Toyota continue to improve their robots.

One day we may all interact with totally autonomous, human-like robots (androids), such as "Jules", a conversational robot that was developed by Hanson Robotics.

Jules- A conversational robot



Link to Video


Now for the newest addition, Albert (Einstein) Hubo. "Albert Hubo" a robot created by Hanson and the KAIST Hubo group.










Link to Video

David Hanson, Ph.D is founder/CEO of Hanson Robotics. He is regarded by IEEE, NYTimes, Science, etc. as a pioneer in robotics. He is a former Walt Disney Imagineer.

Hanson has been called a genius by PC Magazine and 'Wired' and has won AAAI 1st place, NASA, NSF, Innovator of the Year, and Cooper Hewitt Design awards.

About David Hanson- Robot designer

Learn more about Hanson Robotics


One day we may be faced with situations such as in "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, "The Terminator", or even 'Data' the android of Star Trek-The Next Generation. Unlike books, movies and television shows, Asimo, Jules and others of their kind are real.

How will we handle robots that can surpass us in almost every respect? Will they one day up-rise against their human masters, or will they always be the helpmates they were intended?

What constitutes life and will these humanoid robots some day have a soul? Will they one day be our equals? Though improbable, I would have to say possibly so.

As we make strides in "cybernetics" as well as robotics, will we someday 'be them'?

These are some of the questions that must be faced, as we step into the future on mechanical feet. Are we prepared?

-SW
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Attack of the Blob! Antarctica's Blood Falls

atlasobscura.com- This five-story, blood-red waterfall pours very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. When geologists first discovered the frozen waterfall in 1911, they thought the red color came from algae, but its true nature turned out to be much more spectacular.

Roughly 2 million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a world with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of "primordial ooze." The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.

The existence of the Blood Falls ecosystem shows that life is indeed possible in the most extreme of conditions. Life could perhaps exist on other planets with similar environments and similar bodies of frozen water - notably Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa. But regardless of extraterrestrial life, the earth's Blood Falls are a wonder to behold both visually, and scientifically.




Video Link

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Leaf-like Light Eating Sea Slug

cbc.ca- A green sea slug found off North America's east coast not only looks like a leaf, but can also make food out of sunlight, just like a plant.

Only three centimeters long, the solar-powered sea slug Elysia chlorotica can live entirely from energy from the sun. (PNAS)

U.S. researchers have found that the sea slug Elysia chlorotica can photosynthesize, using energy from light to convert carbon dioxide into sugars.

"If you shine light on these slugs, they fix carbon dioxide and make oxygen just like a plant," Sidney Pierce of the University of South Florida told CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks.

Pierce reported his findings Jan. 7 at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, and has submitted his research to the journal Symbiosis.

The slugs look just like a leaf, green and about three centimetres long, and are found off the east coast of North America from Nova Scotia to Florida.

They acquire the ability to photosynthesize by eating algae and incorporating the plants' tiny chlorophyll-containing structures, called chloroplasts, into their own cells.

"Certain cells that line the walls of [the slugs'] digestive tubules are able to actually take up the chloroplasts from the algae, and they sequester them in the cells for very long periods of time," said Pierce.

Pierce said the chloroplasts can live inside the slugs' cells for nine or 10 months, nearly the entire lifetime of the slug, and can provide the animal with all the energy it needs.

"It can complete its entire life cycle, including reproduction, just on photosynthesis," he said.

With the help of radioactive trackers, Pierce found that the slugs are using the chloroplasts to make new chlorophyll, the green pigment that makes photosynthesis possible.
Gene transfer a revelation

The chloroplasts from algae aren't enough in themselves to allow the slugs to live off the sun. The process of photosynthesis requires enzymes and other proteins to keep the chloroplasts working.

"That requires a lot of genes that are present in the algal cell, and so those have been transferred as well," said Pierce.

At some point in the evolution of these sea slugs, genes from the algae transferred over and now reside in the genome of the slug.

"We found 14 or 15 algal genes so far and I'm pretty confident that we're going to find dozens more," said Pierce.

Gene transfers are common in single-celled organisms, but Pierce said this is the first time it has been described in multicellular organisms.

Exactly how the genes got from the algae to the slug isn't clear, but Pierce said research into this mechanism could lead to advances in gene therapy and genetic engineering.

Pierce said gene therapists are "trying to insert genes from one organism to another to fix genetically based diseases, and honestly that doesn't work very well yet, but these slugs have figured that out."

The mechanism could also be important in the study of evolution, giving biologists a new way to explain how organisms acquired certain genes.

"You don't have to sit around waiting for a random mutation to occur. You can take a gene or a group of genes, as is the case with the slugs, and really give yourself a real evolutionary boost," said Pierce.

Source
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Giant meat-eating plants prefer tree shrew poo

Giant meat-eating plants prefer to eat tree shrew poo

By Matt Walker Editor,
Earth News

Botanists have discovered that the giant montane pitcher plant of Borneo has a pitcher the exact same size as a tree shrew's body.

But it is not this big to swallow up mammals such as tree shrews or rats.

Instead, the pitcher uses tasty nectar to attract tree shrews, then ensures its pitcher is big enough to collect the feeding mammal's droppings.

Details of the discovery are published in the journal New Phytologist.

Big reputation

Pitcher plants have elaborate structures which entice creatures such as ants or spiders into a precarious position, from which they fall into a fluid-filled trap, where they drown and are ingested.

These arthropods are thought to provide the plant with vital nitrogen and phosphorus, which it cannot obtain any other way.

Pitchers are the largest carnivorous plants, and the largest pitchers grow in Borneo.

One, known as Nepenthes rajah, is believed to be the largest meat-eating plant in the world, growing pitchers that can hold two litres of water if filled to the brim.

This plant's pitcher is so big that they are reputed to catch vertebrates.

"This species has always been famous for its ability to trap rodents, but I've been looking at the pitchers of this species on and off since 1987, and I've never seen a trapped rat inside," says Dr Charles Clarke, an expert on carnivorous plants based at Monash University's Sunway Campus in Selangor, Malaysia.

"This made me wonder: if it is large enough to trap rats, but it only traps them very rarely, it is likely that the pitchers are large because of some other reason?"

To find out, Dr Clarke and colleagues Ms Lijin Chin of Monash University and Dr Jonathan Moran of Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada turned their attention to tree shrews, which inhabit the same forest as N. rajah.

They did so after noticing that tree shrews, which are a similar size to rodents but most closely related to primates, sometimes left faeces in the traps of large pitchers.

"All of a sudden we realised that there may be some relationship between big pitchers and tree shrews," says Dr Clarke.

"So we decided to look at the pitcher geometry."

What they found "totally blew us away", says Dr Clarke.

Precise dimensions

N. rapah pitchers have huge orifices, but they also grow large concave lids held at an angle of about 90 degrees away from the orifice.

The inside of these lids are covered with glands that exude huge amounts of nectar.

Most importantly, the distance from the front of the pitcher's mouth to the glands corresponds exactly to the head to body length of mountain tree shrews.

The same is true for two other species of large meat-eating pitcher plant, N. lowii and N. macrophylla that are also visited by tree shrews.

However, the pattern does not hold for other pitcher species not associated with the small mammals.

"In order for the tree shrews to reach the exudates, they must climb onto the pitchers and orient themselves in such a way that their backsides are located over the pitcher mouths," explains Dr Clarke.

The tree shrews then appear to defecate as a way of marking their feeding territory.

That suggests these supposedly "meat-eating" plants have evolved a mutualistic relationship with tree shrews.

The tree shrews get nectar, a valuable food source, and in return, the plants get to catch and absorb the tree shrew's faeces which likely supplies the majority of nitrogen required by the plant.

These particular species of pitcher also live in the highlands where insects and other arthropods are more scarce.

Such creatures would normally provide the nitrogen needed by the pitcher, forcing it to evolve its huge size to attract tree shrews instead.

Radical rethink

"150 years after the discovery of N. rajah, we finally have an explanation for why the largest carnivorous plant in the world produces such big pitchers," says Dr Clarke.

Dr Clarke says it is the "neatest" discovery he has made in more than 20 years of studying Nepenthes meat-eating plants.

"The findings should radically alter how we look at these plants," he says.

He believes there is much we still have to learn about the true habits of carnivorous plants.

They suspect another highland species, N. ephippiata, likely feeds on faeces too, as may a huge meat-eating plant called N. attenboroughii which was only discovered last year.

In the lowlands of Borneo, bats roost in the pitchers of yet more Nepenthes species, suggesting these plants may too feed off the faeces of other small mammals.

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Giant 'meat-eating' plant found


Matt Walker Editor,
Earth News

A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.

The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.

During the same expedition, botanists also came across strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms they could not identify.

The botanists have named the pitcher plant after British natural history broadcaster David Attenborough.

They published details of the discovery in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society earlier this year.

Word that this new species of pitcher plant existed initially came from two Christian missionaries who in 2000 attempted to scale Mount Victoria, a rarely visited peak in central Palawan in the Philippines.

With little preparation, the missionaries attempted to climb the mountain but became lost for 13 days before being rescued from the slopes.

On their return, they described seeing a large carnivorous pitcher plant.

That pricked the interest of natural history explorer Stewart McPherson of Red Fern Natural History Productions based in Poole, Dorset, UK and independent botanist Alastair Robinson, formerly of the University of Cambridge, UK and Volker Heinrich, of Bukidnon Province, the Philippines.

All three are pitcher plant experts, having travelled to remote locations in the search for new species.

So in 2007, they set off on a two-month expedition to the Philippines, which included an attempt at scaling Mount Victoria to find this exotic new plant.

Accompanied by three guides, the team hiked through lowland forest, finding large stands of a pitcher plant known to science called Nepenthes philippinensis, as well as strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms which they could not identify.

As they closed in on the summit, the forest thinned until eventually they were walking among scrub and large boulders

"At around 1,600 metres above sea level, we suddenly saw one great pitcher plant, then a second, then many more," McPherson recounts.

"It was immediately apparent that the plant we had found was not a known species."

Pitcher plants are carnivorous. Carnivorous plants come in many forms, and are known to have independently evolved at least six separate times. While some have sticky surfaces that act like flypaper, others like the Venus fly trap are snap traps, closing their leaves around their prey.

Pitchers create tube-like leaf structures into which insects and other small animals tumble and become trapped.

The team has placed type specimens of the new species in the herbarium of the Palawan State University, and have named the plant Nepenthes attenboroughii after broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough.

"The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps as large as other species which catch not only insects, but also rodents as large as rats," says McPherson.

The pitcher plant does not appear to grow in large numbers, but McPherson hopes the remote, inaccessible mountain-top location, which has only been climbed a handful of times, will help prevent poachers from reaching it.

During the expedition, the team also encountered another pitcher, Nepenthes deaniana, which had not been seen in the wild for 100 years. The only known existing specimens of the species were lost in a herbarium fire in 1945.

On the way down the mountain, the team also came across a striking new species of sundew, a type of sticky trap plant, which they are in the process of formally describing.

Thought to be a member of the genus Drosera, the sundew produces striking large, semi-erect leaves which form a globe of blood red foliage.

Source
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Note: When you wonder if life exists on other planets, just take a look at the diversity of life on our own world, Earth. That should be your first clue.

PhanUni

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8.8 Earthquake Hits Chile- A UFO Connection?

Video Link


If true, this is stunning footage by American Missionaries, of a glowing disc-like object that was video taped the night before the 8.8 magnitude earthquake, which struck Chile on February 27, 2010.

Could this be a UFO, an example of a phenomena known to seismologists as “the Hessdalen Phenomenon” or “Luminous Plasmoid (LP).”, or could it be a repercussion of HAARP?

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A devastating magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, February 27, 2010, toppling homes and buildings, collapsing bridges and spawning a tsunami that rolled menacingly across the Pacific.

As of Monday, March 1, 2010, the death toll had reached 723, marking the strongest earthquake to hit Chile in 50 years and one of the strongest ever measured anywhere.

The jolt triggered a tsunami, which began a race across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga. On the islands, traffic was banned on roads less than 1,600 feet from the sea. People in low-lying island nations were urged to find higher ground.

This is not the first, nor will it be the last earthquake in Chile. It isn't even the biggest earthquake ever recorded there. In May of 1960, a 9.5 magnitude earthquake struck along the same fault zone, taking 1,665 lives in Chile, then moving across the ocean as a Tsunami, killing 61 people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

"The Chilean earthquake occurred at the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates. These rocky slabs are converging at a rate of 3 inches (80 mm) per year, according to the USGS. This huge jolt happened as the Nazca plate moved down and landward below the South American plate. This is called a subduction zone when one plate subducts beneath another.

(Over time, the overriding South American Plate gets lifted up, creating the towering Andes Mountains.)

The plate movement explains why coastal Chile has such a history of powerful earthquakes . Since 1973, 13 temblors of magnitude 7.0 or greater have occurred there, according to the USGS."

The UFO Connection

So what is the connection between UFOs and disasters such as earthquakes in Chile, or elsewhere? That's the $64k question.

I rather doubt that UFOs are causing the quakes but then who knows for sure? With all the underground bases that are supposed to exist, even in Chile, all that digging is bound to stir up seismic activity.
From all the UFO sightings reports coming from Chileans lately, it's evident that UFOs (their occupants) could at the very least, be observing, possibly anticipating seismic disturbances.

According to several well known websites, The media in Chile have blamed UFOs for the disappearance of a large lake in that country. The disappearance was discovered on May 27, 2009.

Is it possible that fractures in the bottom of the lake allowed the water to drain away, or did UFOs suck it dry? My money is on the 'drain factor', Earth movements opening fissures, allowing water to drain into underground caverns.

I suspect that alen activity does seem to increase just before a major disaster, as so many have reported sseing UFOs before, during and after a major calamity.

Are aliens attempting to warn us, are they the cause, or are they just observing our 'living earth' and the response of it's inhabitants, to the ensuing catastrophe?

SW

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Big lake disappears overnight in Chile



Video Link



Here is a video of a lake in Brazil that reportedly disappeared in one hour.



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Video of a fleet of UFOs over Chile suposedly recorded in December, 2009.




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Supposed UFO over Chile- November, 2009



Video Link


This last video is said to have been filmed on live TV in Chile. Real, or CGI?



Video Link

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Scientists 'Move The Hands Of Time'

'Doomsday Clock' Moves Away From Midnight but Only by 1 Minute

ABCNews- The world can breathe a sigh of relief today... kind of.

A group of international scientists this morning announced that they are moving the hands of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" away from midnight -- or the figurative apocalypse -- but only by one minute.

The clock, which is maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, was designed to reflect how close civilization is to "catastrophic destruction." First set at seven minutes to midnight, the clock has been moved only 18 times since its creation in 1947.

The group, which includes more than a dozen Nobel laureates, last moved the hands of the clock in 2007, from seven to five minutes before midnight to reflect the threat of a "second nuclear age" and the challenges presented by global warming.

Today, at a press conference in New York, the Bulletin announced that despite the looming threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, it would move the hands of the clock from five to six minutes before midnight.

Scientists: World Facing 'Hopeful' State of Affairs

"By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a statement.

Citing collaborative efforts by world leaders to reduce nuclear arsenals, secure nuclear bomb-making materials and pledge to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the group said the world was facing a "hopeful" state of affairs.

The Bulletin also said that the election of President Barack Obama, along with his efforts to initiate arms reduction talks with Russia and negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, affected its decision.

"We are poised to bend the arc of human history," said Lawrence M. Krauss, co-chair of the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors and a professor at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration and its physics department.

Still, Krauss said the Bulletin chose one minute to highlight the precariousness of the current global situation.

"What that means is that there's great potential for it to move in either direction depending on what happens," he said, adding that while there's been a "sea change" in attitude and the expansion of possibilities, there still hasn't been a lot of action.

"That's hopeful enough to move it but just by a little bit," he said.

-by Ki Mae Heussner

Note: Sounds like a stay of execution. PhUn

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50 Things that we didn't know this time last year

TBO.com- If there were an award for best quote of the year, our money would be on Richard Fisher, the director of NASA's Heliophysics Division.

Fisher was interviewed in October by National Public Radio after NASA scientists discovered a mysterious ribbon of hydrogen around our solar system.

The layer, a sort of protective barrier called the heliosphere, shields us from harmful cosmic radiation. Its existence defies all expectations about what the edge of the solar system might look like.

Fisher's response: "We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns."

In other words: We don't know what we don't know until we know that we don't know it.

Life is funny that way. You think you've got the world wrapped up in string, only to watch some bit of news come along to unravel your comprehension of how things work.

One thing we did expect: that 2009 would be full of strange and wonderful revelations.

A prediction for 2010? Same thing as this year, only different.

Here's a list of stuff we culled from 2009 that may have come as a surprise:

1. Domestic pigs can quickly learn how mirrors work and use them to find food.

2. Grumpy people think more clearly because negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking.

3. High cholesterol levels in midlife are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia later in life.

4. Analysis of Greenland ice samples shows Europe froze solid in less than 12 months 12,800 years ago, partly due to a slowdown of the Gulf Stream. Once triggered, the cold persisted for 1,300 years.

5. One mutated gene is the reason humans have language and chimpanzees, our closest relative, do not.

6. Obesity in teenage girls may increase their risk of later developing multiple sclerosis.

7. A fossil skeleton of an Aardonyx celestae dinosaur discovered in South Africa appears to be the missing link between the earliest dinosaurs that walked on two legs and the large plant-eating sauropods that walked on all four.

8. Women who have undergone successful breast cancer treatment are more likely to have a recurrence if they have dense breast tissue.

9. Babies pick up their parents' accents from the womb, and infants are born crying in their native dialect. Researchers found that French newborns cry in a rising French accent, and German babies cry with a characteristic falling inflection.

10. Surfing the Internet may help delay dementia because it creates stimulation that exercises portions of the brain.

11. The oldest known silken spider webs, dating back 140 million years, were discovered in Sussex, England, preserved in amber. The webs were spun by spiders closely related to modern-day orb-web garden spiders.

12. Scientists have discovered how to scan brain activity and convert what people are seeing or remembering into crude video images.

13. Pumpkin skin contains a substance that inhibits growth of microbes that cause yeast infections.

14. Hormones that signal whether whales are pregnant, lactating or in the mood to mate have been extracted from whales' lung mucus, captured by dangling nylon stockings from a pole over their blowholes as they surface to breathe. (This method could allow scientists to study whales without having to slaughter them.)

15. The higher a patient's body-mass index, the less respect he or she gets from doctors.

16. The blue morpho butterfly, which lives in Central and South America, has tiny ears on its wings and can distinguish between high- and low-pitch sounds. The butterfly may use its ears to listen for nearby predatory birds.

17. The ochre starfish or sea star pumps itself up with cold seawater to lower its body temperature when exposed to the sun at low tide. It is equivalent to a human drinking 1.8 gallons of water before heading into the midday sun, scientists say.

18. The eyes of the mantis shrimp possess a feature that could make DVDs and CDs perform better. By emulating this structure, which displays color wavelengths at all ranges, developers could create a new category of optical devices.

19. The calmest place on Earth is on top of an icy plateau in Antarctica known as Ridge A, several hundred miles from the South Pole. It is so still that stars do not twinkle in the sky because there is no turbulence in the atmosphere to distort the light.

20. The thrill of driving a sports car makes the body produce more testosterone. The findings suggest a biological explanation for why some men buy a sports car when struck by a "midlife crisis."

21. Remains discovered in China of a flying reptile named Darwinopterus could be a missing link between short-tailed pterodactyls and their huge, long-tailed descendants.

22. Bagheera kiplingi, a jumping arachnid from Central America, is the first known vegetarian spider. It eats nectar-filled leaf tips rather than other animals.

23. A massive, nearly invisible ring of ice and dust particles surrounds Saturn. The ring's entire volume can hold 1 billion Earths.

24. A new chemical compound that mimics the body's ability to fight bacteria could be added to cleaning detergents to prevent bacterial infections in hospitals.

25. Seven new glow-in-the-dark mushroom species have been discovered, increasing the number of known luminescent fungi species from 64 to 71. The fungi, discovered in Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia and Puerto Rico, glow constantly, emitting a bright, yellowish-green light.

26. Hormones in oral contraceptives might suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish males more attractive to her.

27. Women who revealed about 40 percent of their skin attracted twice as many men as those who covered up. Any more than 40 percent and the signal changes from allure to one indicating general availability and future infidelity.

28. Communities of 850 species of previously undiscovered insects, small crustaceans, spiders, worms and other creatures were found living in underground water, caves and micro-caverns across Australia.

29. The human body emits a glow that is 1,000 times less than what our eyes can detect.

30. If you're trying to attract a partner, an athletic body helps, but a good-looking face is more important.

31. Cockroaches hold their breath for five to seven minutes at a time through a respiratory system that delivers oxygen directly to cells from air-filled tubes. One reason they hold their breath may be to prevent their bodies from getting too much oxygen, which could be toxic to them.

32. Earth was bombarded in 2008 with high levels of solar energy at a time when the sun was in an unusually quiet phase and sunspots had virtually disappeared.

33. Scientists have discovered female eggs in the genitalia of a third of all American male smallmouth bass and a fifth of their largemouth cousins. Female bass occasionally show signs of male testes in their reproductive organs.

34. Nearly all animals emit the same stench when they die, and have done so for more than 400 million years.

35. Previously unknown molecules called hydroxyl radicals are produced by nature and are thought to act as agents that scrub away toxic air pollution in Earth's atmosphere.

36. A new species of giant rat was discovered in a remote rainforest in Papua New Guinea. At 32.2 inches from nose to tail and 3.3 pounds, it's thought to be one of the largest rats ever found.

37. Differences in body odors produced by people who are more prone to insect bites show they have lower levels of fruity-smelling compounds in their sweat than those who are resistant to mosquitoes.

38. A chemical component in broccoli can protect the lining of arteries from blockage that leads to angina, heart attack and stroke.

39. The length, curl and texture of a dog's fur are controlled by three genes.

40. The speed of U.S Internet broadband lags far behind other nations, including Japan, Finland, South Korea, France and Canada.

41. Polar bear skulls have shrunk 2 percent to 9 percent since the early 20th century. It's the result, scientists theorize, of stress from pollution and melting habitat.

42. A mysterious disease that killed off more than a third of American honeybees in 2007-08 may have been caused in part by a virus.

43. A group of deep sea worms dubbed "green bombers" are capable of casting off appendages that glow a brilliant green once detached from their bodies. The tactic is believed to be used by the worms to confuse attackers.

44. A flesh-eating pitcher plant that grows more than 4 feet long can swallow rats that are lured into its slipperlike mouth to drown or die of exhaustion before being slowly dissolved by digestive enzymes.

45. An orchid on the Chinese island of Hainan gets hornets to spread its pollen by producing an aroma identical to that of bees under attack. The hornets feed on bee larvae, so when they get a whiff of the alarm pheromone, they head to the orchids figuring bees are inside.

46. More than 350 new animal species were discovered in the eastern Himalayas, including the world's smallest deer and a flying frog.

47. The spleen is a reservoir for huge numbers of immune cells called monocytes. In the event of a serious health crisis, such as a heart attack, wound or infection, the spleen will disgorge them into the bloodstream to help defend the body.

48. The Amazon River is about 11 million years old and took its present shape about 2.4 million years ago.

49. A close relationship with a caregiver can give Alzheimer's patients an edge in retaining brain function over time.

50. Watermelon is more efficient at rehydrating bodies than drinking water. It contains 92 percent water and essential rehydration salts.

For links to each listing, go to original story.
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Sources: Sydney Morning Herald; BehavioralHealthCentral.com; Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry; New Scientist; Neurology; BBC News; Women's College Research Institute; Current Biology; Saint Joseph Health Scene; Live Science; University of California, Berkeley; stltoday.com; Journal of General Internal Medicine; Live Science, American Naturalist; Nature Photonics; London Times; Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes; Science News; Current Biology; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Acta Biomaterialia; San Francisco State University; Trends in Ecology and Evolution; Behaviour; Eurekalert; Tohoku Institute of Technology and Kyoto University; Evolution and Human Behavior; Journal of Experimental Biology; Geophysical Research - Space Physics; U.S. Geological Survey; Evolutionary Biology; National Geographic News; Oxford University Museum of Natural History; Rothamsted Research; Imperial College London; National Human Genome Research Institute; Communications Workers of America; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; Science; Redfern Natural History Productions; Current Biology; World Wildlife Fund; Geology; Journals of Gerontology; University of Aberdeen Medical School

Reporter Jeff Houck

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"Once In A Blue Moon" New Year's Eve 2009

"Blue Moon" to Shine on New Year's Eve
Andrew Fazekas
for National Geographic News
December 30, 2009







National Geographic News-For the first time in almost 20 years, a bright "blue moon" will grace New Year's Eve celebrations worldwide. (Take a moon myths quiz.)

If the skies are clear, revelers looking up at midnight will get an eyeful of the second full moon of the month—commonly called a blue moon. The last time a blue moon appeared on New Year's Eve was in 1990, and it won't happen again until 2028.

A blue moon isn't actually blue—as commonly defined, the name reflects the relative rarity of two full moons in a month and is linked to the saying "once in a blue moon."

With this New Year's Eve blue moon, "there is nothing scientific about it, and it has no astronomical significance," said Mark Hammergren, a staff astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.

"But I believe it does give us some insight into history and makes us think of how our calendar system has derived from motions of objects in the sky."

Blue Moon Error

The popular definition of a blue moon isn't the only one—and it's one that's based on an editorial error, astronomers contend.

The widespread definition of the second full moon in a month stems from errors made in an astronomy magazine, when a writer misinterpreted how the term was used in the Maine Farmer's Almanac.

Later studies of almanacs published from 1819 to 1962 revealed that the term "blue moon" actually refers to the "extra" full moon that can occur in a year due to differences between the calendar year and the astronomical year.

(Related: "Leap Year—How the World Makes Up for Lost Time.")

Most years on average have 12 full moons, with 1 appearing each month.

That's because the lunar month—the time it takes the moon to cycle through its phases—corresponds closely to the calendar month.

But the calendar year is actually based on the solar cycle, or the time it takes Earth to make one trip around the sun. This means a year is not evenly divisible by lunar months, so every three years or so there are 13 full moons.

The farmer's almanac further divided the year into four seasons, with each season lasting three months. When a given season saw four full moons, the almanac dubbed the third moon as a blue moon.

Ultimately, a blue moon as defined by the calendar isn't that rare, added Hammergren. The term's significance instead lies in the way it links people to the motions of the cosmos.

"Just being able to recognize that we can have a full moon twice in a month and have [folklore] attached really highlights the fact that humans have been astronomers their entire existence," he said.

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A Kansas 'Superman' Lifts Car off Girl

KCTV5.com

OTTAWA, kan. -- A young girl is calling a neighbor a superhero because of what he did when she was trapped beneath a car.

Nick Harris said he doesn't know where he found the strength, but somehow he managed to lift a car off the 6-year-old girl last week, earning himself the title of Superman.

"I just think it's a Christmas miracle," Harris said.

Harris said he has tried time and again to recreate the surprising show of strength that he said surfaced when sheer instinct sent him running to the 6-year-old's aid.

"I just ran over there, I looked, I seen the tire on her, and I lifted the car up to get her out from underneath the car," Harris said. "I don't know how I did it. I've tried three or four times since then."

Harris was dropping off his daughter at Eugene Field Elementary Friday morning when he saw a car back out of a driveway, pinning the girl under its tire. That girl turned out to be his daughter's best friend.

"I was expecting her to have crushed hips," Harris said. "I've had broken toes, because a car just backed over my foot. And here this whole car was on top of her. I wasn't expecting it to turn out as wonderful as it did."

The first-grader was flown to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City by air ambulance, but didn't have to stay long.

And though some said it was adrenaline that gave Harris his superhuman strength, he said seeing that girl run down the street to give him a hug the next day convinced him there was something special going on.

"They all call me superman now," Harris said. "I'm just a dad. I'm just a dad that was in the right place at the right time. And I was finally able to help and I did something good."

Read more of the story here>>

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Can people really perform Superhuman Feats of Strength?

Adrenaline is a naturally occurring hormone in the body. In response to situations which may be exciting, dangerous or threatening, some people experience an adrenaline rush. Adrenaline also known as epinephrine, is released in such situations and is linked to the 'fight or flight" response.

When epinephrine is released, it creates a super boost of glucose and oxygen, which are sent to the brain and muscles while, other bodily functions are suppressed. This is why some people can perform amazing feats of strength when faced with an emergency.

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Is Death The Next 'Reality'?

Recently a dear friend of mine was taken by her husband to the local emergency room. She has always had heart problems and this was apparently one of those 'big' problems.

Being a small rural hospital, the staff was ill equipped to handle something so major, yet they kept her for a week, while she quickly regressed to the point where her kidneys, then lungs began to fail.

Her cardiologist only makes visits to our small town, every other Tuesday, so by the time he got to see his patient, she was in dire straights. He immediately had her transported to a cardiology unit in a hospital located in the city he works in.

That first night was rough but the next morning was even worse. My friend 'coded'. In other words, she died.

Nurses rushed in, an emergency doctor was called in and with some difficulty, they revived my friend.

It was touch and go for a while, a pacemaker was installed in her chest, chemical balances teetered and her lungs just wouldn't get enough air, to supply the oxygen needed to keep her going.

She spent weeks in the hospital but finally one day, my friend's husband finally got to bring her home. Though weak, she seems to be adjusting and doing well, so we are all releived just to have her home.

I am a straight-forward type of person and more than just a bit curious, so I asked my friend if when she 'coded', did she see a 'light'?

"No." was her reply, "I just saw darkness, then nothing."

"Oh, thank goodness!" I said, "Had you seen 'the light' you might not have come back."

I had an N.D.E. (near death experience), that happened years ago. I didn't see a light either.

One second I was in horrible pain, the next I was 'outside' of myself, looking back at my catatonic face and my mother beside me, in anguish. During these brief moments, I tried to comfort my mother, telling her I was fine but she could neither see, nor hear me.

Then suddenly I was in a dark tunnel and when I opened my eyes, I was in excruciating pain again. At that moment, if I had seen the light so many people describe, I doubt I would have wanted to come back.

So what is death? Do we really die? Well, I see death as a transition from one form to another. Who we truly 'are', lives on.

I think death is as they say, 'a part of life' and just a step to the next reality but I hope and plan to keep this form, this corporeal body for as long as I can. This 'life' is just too interesting and I still have so much to do.

I read something about death that I thought I'd share with you, my readers. Dr. Lanza gives us a scientific look at life and death.
- SW
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Does Death Exist? New Theory Says 'No'

By Robert Lanza, MD

Photo of Robert Lanza in his lab.

huffingtonpost.com- Many of us fear death. We believe in death because we have been told we will die. We associate ourselves with the body, and we know that bodies die. But a new scientific theory suggests that death is not the terminal event we think.

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the "many-worlds" interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the 'multiverse'). A new scientific theory - called biocentrism - refines these ideas. There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling - the 'Who am I?'- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn't go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?

Consider an experiment that was recently published in the journal Science showing that scientists could retroactively change something that had happened in the past. Particles had to decide how to behave when they hit a beam splitter. Later on, the experimenter could turn a second switch on or off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle did in the past. Regardless of the choice you, the observer, make, it is you who will experience the outcomes that will result. The linkages between these various histories and universes transcend our ordinary classical ideas of space and time. Think of the 20-watts of energy as simply holo-projecting either this or that result onto a screen. Whether you turn the second beam splitter on or off, it's still the same battery or agent responsible for the projection.

According to Biocentrism, space and time are not the hard objects we think. Wave your hand through the air - if you take everything away, what's left? Nothing. The same thing applies for time. You can't see anything through the bone that surrounds your brain. Everything you see and experience right now is a whirl of information occurring in your mind. Space and time are simply the tools for putting everything together.

Death does not exist in a timeless, spaceless world. In the end, even Einstein admitted, "Now Besso" (an old friend) "has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us...know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Immortality doesn't mean a perpetual existence in time without end, but rather resides outside of time altogether.

This was clear with the death of my sister Christine. After viewing her body at the hospital, I went out to speak with family members. Christine's husband - Ed - started to sob uncontrollably. For a few moments I felt like I was transcending the provincialism of time. I thought about the 20-watts of energy, and about experiments that show a single particle can pass through two holes at the same time. I could not dismiss the conclusion: Christine was both alive and dead, outside of time.

Christine had had a hard life. She had finally found a man that she loved very much. My younger sister couldn't make it to her wedding because she had a card game that had been scheduled for several weeks. My mother also couldn't make the wedding due to an important engagement she had at the Elks Club. The wedding was one of the most important days in Christine's life. Since no one else from our side of the family showed, Christine asked me to walk her down the aisle to give her away.

Soon after the wedding, Christine and Ed were driving to the dream house they had just bought when their car hit a patch of black ice. She was thrown from the car and landed in a banking of snow.

"Ed," she said "I can't feel my leg."

She never knew that her liver had been ripped in half and blood was rushing into her peritoneum.

After the death of his son, Emerson wrote "Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature."

Whether it's flipping the switch for the Science experiment, or turning the driving wheel ever so slightly this way or that way on black-ice, it's the 20-watts of energy that will experience the result. In some cases the car will swerve off the road, but in other cases the car will continue on its way to my sister's dream house.

Christine had recently lost 100 pounds, and Ed had bought her a surprise pair of diamond earrings. It's going to be hard to wait, but I know Christine is going to look fabulous in them the next time I see her.

Read more by Robert Lanza, MD

Robert Lanza, MD is considered one of the leading scientists in the world. He is the author of "Biocentrism," a book that lays out his theory of everything.

More about Robert Lanza, MD


Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, copyright- Robert Lanza.
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