Pre-Inspired

Ten human embryos each containing the DNA from one man and two women have been created in a project that within three years could lead to the first genetically altered babies being born in Britain.

The form of gene transplant proposed in Newcastle will be bitterly opposed by pro-life campaigners but offers the first realistic hope of an effective treatment for an entire class of serious genetic diseases.

Progress is such that Lord Walton of Detchant has tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would allow this radical treatment to be used without seeking the permission of Parliament by seeking the approval of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority instead. Although the Government rejected it Monday, it has assured Lord Walton that this issue will be debated soon and that there should be “full public consideration.”

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It took almost 50 years, but slowly, slowly David Stewart went blind. A former long-time executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., Stewart has a hereditary disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which affects the rods and cones in his eyes. In his 20s, his vision narrowed. By the time he hit 80, he was almost totally blind. But then he discovered that sometimes blindness comes with a bonus. One day while listening to a book on tape — 1776 by David McCullough — he heard how American sailors helped George Washington sneak cannons and horses across the Hudson River to escape the British. As Stewart mused about those sailors, very strangely, one of them appeared in his head — not a dreamy fantasy, but a vivid, highly detailed, very real-like hallucination.

The [phenomenon of pee shivers] is an example of the human body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) at work. We are not conscious of the ANS. It runs on automatic, hence its name, “autonomic”, which literally means “self controlling, working independently”. The urination reflex is relayed through the ANS. The reflex is directly related in strength to the amount of stretch of the bladder. Thus, the degree of shivering is generally related to how full the bladder is at the time of urination.

In any case, at the moment of urination, there is a slight blood pressure rise and a momentary flushing or euphoria shortly after relaxing the urethral sphincter. Some find this feeling pleasurable. At such moments, some people say “ah”. This same response in its most extreme forms causes fainting. All of this is the ANS doing its job.

In 1976 the Danish public got behind an ambitious (and expensive) program to become entirely energy-independent, and, with the development of new, clean energy systems, to get out of the foreign oil business completely. Some of the steps taken:

• Strict energy-efficiency standards were placed on all buildings.

• Gas and automobiles were heavily taxed (Today new cars are taxed at more than 105% of the cost of the car.) • “District heating systems” were implemented throughout the country, reusing normally wasted heat produced by power plants by piping it directly into homes. Today more than 60% of Danish homes are heated this way.

• The government invested heavily in clean and renewable energy systems, especially wind power. Today 21% of Denmark’s energy production comes from wind farms. On top of that, they lead the world in wind-power technology - another product to export. The industry has created more than 20,000 jobs.

• Rebate campaigns helped people buy more energy-efficient - and therefore more expensive - home appliances. Today more than 95% of new appliances bought in Denmark have an “A” efficiency rating. (“A” is the best; “G” is the worst.)

• They started drilling for - and finding - more oil and natural gas within their own waters in the North Sea. (Showing that no plan is perfect, these efforts have long been opposed by environmentalists.)

• In 2005 the government committed $1 billion to develop and integrate better solar, tidal, and fuel-cell technology.

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii. Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years. “With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it’s the perfect environment for trapping,” Eriksen said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm.” The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco. Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans.”

The core of the Buddhist teaching is the Four Noble Truths: There is suffering. There is a cause to suffering. There is an end to suffering. The is a path out of suffering (the Noble 8-fold path).

The Reality of Suffering—dukkha


The Cause of Suffering—samudaya


The Cessation of Suffering—nirodha


The Path to the Cessation of Suffering—magga