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The Myths of Materialism

Details: Published: Friday, 23 September 2022 13:00

Tim Wyatt – England

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The author at Stonehedge

Wealth and piety will decrease day by day, until the world is wholly depraved. Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated only for its mineral resources.

From the Vishnu Purana.

This quote from the ancient Hindu scriptures refers to The Kali Yuga or Dark Age. This is the era in which we now find ourselves enmeshed, and in which materialism reigns supreme as the world crumbles into decadence and destruction. Although written centuries ago the sentiments above have a grim resonance in our modern world in which materialism predominates and allows no rivals.

Climate change has likely begun to suffocate the world’s fisheries

Details: Published: Monday, 05 September 2022 15:23

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By 2080, around 70% of the world's oceans could be suffocating from a lack of oxygen as a result of climate change, potentially impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, according to a new study. The new models find mid-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021.

Politically polarized brains share an intolerance of uncertainty

Details: Published: Saturday, 20 August 2022 08:33

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Since the 1950s, political scientists have theorized that political polarization -- increased numbers of "political partisans" who view the world with an ideological bias -- is associated with an inability to tolerate uncertainty and a need to hold predictable beliefs about the world.

But little is known about the biological mechanisms through which such biased perceptions arise.

Mindfulness meditation reduces pain by separating it from the self

Details: Published: Tuesday, 09 August 2022 10:01

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[UC San Diego study reveals neural circuitry supporting mindfulness-induced pain relief]

For centuries, people have been using mindfulness meditation to try to relieve their pain, but neuroscientists have only recently been able to test if and how this actually works. In the latest of these efforts, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine measured the effects of mindfulness on pain perception and brain activity.

Recalled experiences surrounding death: More than hallucinations?

Details: Published: Sunday, 03 July 2022 14:37

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Global scientific team publishes consensus statement and new guidelines

Scientific advances in the 20^th and 21^st centuries have led to a major evolution in the understanding of death. At the same time, for decades, people who have survived an encounter with death have recalled unexplained lucid episodes involving heightened consciousness and awareness. These have been reported using the popular -- yet scientifically ill-defined -- term "near-death experiences."

Disbelief in human evolution linked to greater prejudice and racism

Details: Published: Tuesday, 19 April 2022 06:18

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A disbelief in human evolution was associated with higher levels of prejudice, racist attitudes and support of discriminatory behavior against Blacks, immigrants and the LGBTQ community in the U.S., according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Similarly, across the globe -- in 19 Eastern European countries, 25 Muslim countries and in Israel -- low belief in evolution was linked to higher biases within a person's group, prejudicial attitudes toward people in different groups and less support for conflict resolution.

Nature’s Secret Empires

Details: Published: Monday, 21 March 2022 12:42

Tim Wyatt – England

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The author

Unseen and unrecognised by the vast majority of people, there is a hidden commonwealth of invisible non-human entities creating, protecting and renewing life-forms in all nature’s kingdoms. These unseen empires are widely referred to throughout esoteric literature but are rarely discussed.

These kingdoms involve vast hierarchies of nature-spirits – or elementals – operating in the four elements of air, earth, fire and water, principally on the etheric and astral planes. At a higher level there are even more powerful creative figures – the devas (translated from Sanskrit as shining ones) otherwise known as the angelic kingdoms which operate on the mental and astral planes.

Mars habitability limited by its small size, isotope study suggests

Details: Published: Friday, 24 September 2021 13:56

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Water is essential for life on Earth and other planets, and scientists have found ample evidence of water in Mars' early history. But Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests a fundamental reason: Mars may be just too small to hold onto large amounts of water.

Remote sensing studies and analyses of Martian meteorites dating back to the 1980s posit that Mars was once water-rich, compared with Earth. NASA's Viking orbiter spacecraft -- and, more recently, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the ground -- returned dramatic images of Martian landscapes marked by river valleys and flood channels.