Medley

Leo Babauta – USA

Distraction at the workplace

In a perfect world, you could learn to beat the urges that defeat you and create an environment of focus … and just focus. But we live and work in a world with other people, and that can make finding focus difficult.

Michiel Haas – the Netherlands

Introduction  

In three articles I want to provide an overview of how we treat animals and how things could be done differently. In our society, animals are used as an efficient production tool in a way that is no longer in line with the scientific view that animals are conscious to varying degrees, have feelings and can suffer pain.

Should we use animals? 

Who gives us the right to use animals as a production tool and often not treat them as living beings with feelings? Is that a biblical right? God said "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Genesis 1:28). But does it give us a licence to treat animals badly? No, definitely not. God even gave the Israelites laws for animal welfare. They had to get plenty of rest and food, to be assisted when in need and to be protected from injury (Exodus 23: 4, 5; Deuteronomy 22:10; 25: 4). The Koran is also clear about this. "He it is who made you successors in the earth. " (Quran 35:39), but still, He is clear that this responsibility is not unconditional. For those who fail to meet the conditions that limit this responsibility, the following applies: "Then we return him to the lowest of the low" (Quran 95: 5 ... ..). In short, although the sacred books make man ruler of the animals on Earth, those books are equally clear that such a responsibility is comes with duties. It certainly looks like today's society disregards those duties.

This idyllic image of cows in a meadow is becoming increasingly rare (photo © MilieuDefensie)

Unique experiment explores canine 'numerosity'

Dogs spontaneously process basic numerical quantities, using a distinct part of their brains that corresponds closely to number-responsive neural regions in humans, finds a study at Emory University.

Biology Letters published the results, which suggest that a common neural mechanism has been deeply conserved across mammalian evolution.

New study provides insights into the first steps

How did the almost 6,000 languages of the world come into being? Researchers from the Leipzig Research Centre for Early Childhood Development at Leipzig University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have tried to simulate the process of developing a new communication system in an experiment -- with surprising results: even preschool children can spontaneously develop communication systems that exhibit core properties of natural language.

Ananya Sri Ram Rajan – USA

This past summer, I was (again) introduced to the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book was gifted to me in a roundabout fashion after many people mentioned that I needed to read it. (If we only realized the ways in which the universe speaks to us!) Dr. Kimmerer starts her book with a North American creation story about Skywoman. “In the beginning was Skyworld. . .” Skywoman descends from Skyworld to help create Turtle Island or what we now call North America. The story is so rich in symbolism. For Skywoman to fulfill what she needs to do, she requires mud to plant the seeds she brings. Many water creatures try to swim to the bottom of the sea without success. It is the muskrat, small, unseen, and in today’s mainstream thinking inconsequential, who dives to the bottom and whose lifeless body surfaces, clutching the mud in his little hand. Turtle offers his back as the solidity needed for the mud to plant the seeds and Skywoman sings a thanksgiving song. As she dances, she plants her seeds with every step. I haven’t done justice to this story. But what stays with me again and again is the beauty, generosity, gratitude, harmony, and abundance of the story. Nothing is without purpose, no one is inconsequential. And nothing is done for oneself. Every action is done for the evolution of the Creator and for all the beings that come after. Great Spirit is in every thing. Even the mud. (And that folks, is Theosophy in Native American form!)

Leo Babauta – USA

Distraction

2: the problem of others 

In a perfect world, you could learn to beat the urges that defeat you and create an environment of focus … and just focus. But we live and work in a world with other people, and that can make finding focus difficult.

Often, our lives aren’t completely under our control. Sometimes, others can stand in our way, or just make things tough. Often other people can make a big impact on our ability to simplify and create. Let’s take a look at some of those types of situations, and some solutions that can help.

Funnel-Web Spider – One Of The Most Venomous Spiders in Australia

Researchers at McMaster University who rush in after storms to study the behavior of spiders have found that extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones may have an evolutionary impact on populations living in storm-prone regions, where aggressive spiders have the best odds of survival.

Raging winds can demolish trees, defoliate entire canopies and scatter debris across forest floors, radically altering the habitats and reshaping the selective pressures on many organisms, suggests a new study published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.