Yearly Archives: 2012

Thoughts on 2012 by Antot Masuka

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Year of Destiny: 2012 Journey Through Time and the Cosmos! By Antot Masuka

Mayan 

THE MAYAN CALENDAR

The Mayans developed a simple yet comprehensive calendar system that allowed them to describe the internal processes of time or nature, often referred as an underworld, meaning that which goes on within that is often kept from plain sight.

The following article will be appearing in this month’s Winter Edition of ‘Ingress’ magazine, a publication of The National Council for Geocosmic Research NCGR http://www.geocosmic.org

The Mayans used a Vegesimal system that rises by factors of twenty, with one exception.  A day is a Kin.  Twenty (20) Kins is a Uinal.  Eighteen (18) Uinals represents a Tun (360 days).  Twenty (20) Tuns is a Katun (7,200 days).  Twenty (20) Katuns is a Baktun (144,000 days).  A Pictun consists of 2,880,000 days, a Calabtun is 57,600,000 days and a Kinchilitun is 1,152,000,000 days or 3 million 154 thousand years, Alautun, which is 20 tuns raised to the sixth power or 63.1 million years and finally a Hablatun, 20 tuns raised to the 7th power or 1.26 billion years.  Each cycle is broken down into thirteen stages, evolutionary processes or heavens that evolve from seed to maturity.

AZTEC AGES OR SUN GODS
The idea that December 21, 2012 may bring the end of the world is based on the Aztec Sun Disk (shown above) that shows 5 ages or Sun gods.  The first Sun god Tezcatlipoca took the form of a jaguar and destroyed the world.  The world was destroyed by a great wind when the reign of the second Sun god, Quetzalcoatl, came to an end.  Tlaloc was the third Sun god, but Questzalcoatl wasn’t happy and made fire rain down causing destruction and the end of that age.  The fourth Sun god was Chalchiuhtlicue (lady of the jade skirts), the goddess of water – lakes and streams.  The fighting gods caused a flood, which destroyed the Earth.  The fifth Sun were two gods, Tecciztecatl and Nanauatl.  The gods decided that the first to offer his life in a blazing fire would be Sun god. Both jumped in creating two Suns (bianry stars) that shun brightly.  The gods wouldn’t stand for this, so they threw a rabbit into the face of Tecciztecatl to dim his brightness.  And so he became the moon, doomed to chase the sun forever, but never to shine as bright.

MAYAN WORLD AGE
Many authors believe that we are living in the fifth and final Mayan world age or cycle that started on August 11, 3114 BC.  Our present world age that started in 3114 BC consists of 5,125 years.  When you insert the Aztec creation story that describes five world ages of creation (four of which have passed) into the Mayan Long Count calendar the number of years is close to a precession year lasting 25,625 years (5,125 times 5).

Many authors believe that four world ages came immediately before the start of the Mayan calendar in 3114 BC, but the historical records do not support the existence of such earlier cycles or ages that we can easily fit into a neat package of 5,125 years periods going back into time or readily associate with the Aztec Sun Disk.  No author has offered dates for these four previous world ages that can be used as a guide to understanding the cycle that started 3114 BC.  Some claim that the prior world ages or cycles were longer than the fifth world age that started 3114 BC. Dr. Paul LaViolette believes that some earlier cycles lasted up to 820 million years for the Age of the Jaguar or Mammalian Age.

Scientist and author, Maurice Cotterrell, The Super Gods and The Mayan Prophecies, strongly insist that this period is not the completion of a cycle that can be attributed to the Mayan calendar.

In fact Cotterrell argues that the Mayan calendar goes beyond 2012 to include other cycles far into the future that exceed 1,872,000 days and that “at best it can only be considered to be 13/20ths of the Pictun, the next largest period” that began on August 11, 3114 BC.

THE AGE OF MAN
Zacharia Sitchin, author of The Twelfth Planet believes that The Age of Man, a time when human beings were given dominion over the Earth, started around 3,100 BC.  The Mayan universe that started on August 11, 3114 BC corresponds to the start of ‘The Age of Man’ described by Sitchin.  This date also corresponds neatly with the starting dates of civilizations that seem to spring up from out of nowhere in Sumer, Egypt, India and further east in China.  Mênes was the first Egyptian Pharaoh to unite Upper and Lower Egypt starting the 1st Dynastic Period dated around 3,100 BC – 3,200 BC defining the apex of Egyptian civilization. On the Atlantic side of the globe, early Mayan and Mesoamerica civilizations took off as well with new monolith constructions at Palenque, Mexico.

Sitchin own viewpoint is that Mayan 2012 prophecies hold no particular significance, and does not mark the return date for Nibiru often referred to as Planet X.

John Van Auken of the Association of Research and Enlightenment, Virginia Beach, Virginia identifies the world ages as 1) Age of the Jaguar, 2) Age of Water or the Fish, 3) Age of Fire, 4) Age of Turkeys, 5) Age of Movement, 6) Age of Spirit of All Living Things, and 7) Age of Melting Into Oneness Again!  He believes that we are ending the Age of Movement on December 21, 2012, the image in the center of the Aztec Sun Disk surrounded by four diagonal squares, entering the Fifth Sun or Age of Spirit of All Living Things after which we will enter the last and final Age of Melting into Oneness Again.  He does not offer dates for when the sixth or seventh world age will end, but notes that Nostradamus saw into the future well up to 3797 AD.

AZTEC AGES OR SUN GODS
The idea that December 21, 2012 may bring the end of the world is based on the Aztec Sun Disk that shows 5 ages or sun gods.  The first Sun god Tezcatlipoca took the form of a jaguar and destroyed the world.  The world was destroyed by a great wind when the reign of the second Sun god, Quetzalcoatl, came to an end.  Tlaloc was the third Sun god, but Questzalcoatl wasn’t happy and made fire rain down causing destruction and the end of the age.  The fourth Sun god was Chalchiuhtlicue (lady of the jade skirts), the goddess of water – lakes and streams.  The fighting gods caused a flood to destroy the Earth.  The fifth Sun were two gods, Tecciztecatl and Nanauatl.  The gods decided that the first to offer his life in a blazing fire would be Sun god. Both jumped in creating two Suns (bianry stars) that shun brightly.  The gods wouldn’t stand for this, so they threw a rabbit into the face of Tecciztecatl to dim his brightness.  And so he became the moon, doomed to chase the sun forever, but never to shine as bright.

MAYAN LONG COUNT CALENDAR
The date of origin of the Mayan Long Count calendar is August 11, 3114 BC, representing a cycle of 13 Baktuns which ends on December 21, 2012.  But the real meaning of the ending of this cycle is open to debate since most of the records and inscriptions which were written by the Mayans in the Classical period (250 BC – 900 AD) that would have given us an unequivocal understanding of what the closing of this stage or heaven truly means were destroyed by Europeans who conquered the Americas during 15th and 16th centuries.

Contemporary Mayans living in the Yucatan, Mexico and the greater part of northern Peru and Central America believe that when this world ends, possibly through annihilation or destruction around December 21, 2012, another world shall begin!  Will this renewal come from Super Gods as Cotterrell maintains is unknown.

Contemporary Mayans also believe that each world age was part of an evolutionary cycle designed to perfect life in the world. They believed that man’s perfection will be achieved at the end of this world age.  In their view, the world will not end suddenly in 2012.  Man will be recreated anew!  There will be a new beginning after the end of this world age to allow life to continue, only that the new world will be very different from the one in which we live.  These views are very much in line with the spirit, myths and cosmology mastered by Mayans living on the Classical period, but they are not rooted in any specific Stela or inscription found at Mayan archaeological sites that can be quoted authoritatively.  Part of the reason for this is that Mayan prophecies and cosmology is still part of a secret order of Mayan elders who use the oral tradition of passing knowledge and wisdom from one generation to another.

Maurice Cotterrell argues against ideas proposed by John Major Jenkins that the winter equinox of 2012 shall come into direct alignment with the Galactic Center.  Cotterrell believes that this is not accurate nor is it scientifically valid.  If any such alignment were to take place it would not occur at a single moment in time because of the vast area that the center of the galaxy represents, which is still under debate by scientists.  The Sun’s crossing of the galactic center would most likely take a greater period of time exceeding the proposed 36 years advocated by proponents of this theory.

In Cotterrell’s viewpoint, it is impossible to accurately calculate the line for the galactic elliptic. To do so would require knowing the mass of the galaxy, a task which science has not yet undertaken.  Proponents of this argument claim that the Sun will cross an imaginary galactic elliptic, that is only a guess, between 1980 and 2016, which includes December 21, 2012 as one of those dates robbing it of its mystical Mayan Long Count calendar meaning and significance.

For the Mayans, the dark rift near the center of the Milky Way galaxy marks the black road to the underworld.  This is visualized as a celestial mouth akin to the vagina from which new life emerges.  The emergence of Lord Xibalba is synonymous with birth.  The appearance of the Sun from the dark rift would be a natural point in Mayan cosmology indicative of a new beginning from some ending point.  December 21, 2012 seems to suggest that some ending of the current world order will take place around this date triggering a renewal of life on Earth shortly thereafter.
Many cultures celebrate winter solstice as the death, burial and resurrection of the Sun. On the 20th of December the Sun is mythical killed (stops in the sky), buried on the 21st (stationary on the elliptic), and resurrected on the 22nd (increase in declination moving towards the summer solstice).

There is no shortage of ideas, opinions and speculations of what will happen when the Mayan Long Count calendar ends on December 21, 2012, which has fed a frenzy of news stories, articles and media publications!

Nevertheless, when you closely examine the Mayan Calendar system, some interesting facts emerge that tie into cycles found in nature.  For example, the 400-year Baktun cycle is equivalent to the amount of time it takes the Earth’s core to rotate around a fixed point on the surface.  The twenty-year Katun cycle corresponds to the time it takes the Earth’s magnetic field to rotate around a fixed point on the surface.

The Mayan Calendar allowed them to accurately record the cycles of other planets.  Venus was particularly important to the Mayans.  Its dual rising in the east and the west forms a Vesica Piscis representing the incarnation of spirit into matter, which is the basis of all life on planet Earth.  Being the brightest celestial object in the night sky, Venus is associated with the star of Bethlehem.

MAYAN PROPHECIES FOR 2012
Mayan 2012 prophecies that relate to the Mayan Long Count calendar come from The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin.  These prophecies state that:

  1. “In the final days of misfortunes, in the final days of tying up the bundle of the thirteen (baktuns) … then the end of the world shall come and the baktun of our fathers will ascend on high.”
  2. “Presently the Baktuns thirteen shall come sailing… Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps ‘after death’ will be the subject of his discourse.
  3. “These little valleys of the earth shall come to an end. For those katuns (7,200 days) there shall be no priests, and no one believes in his government without having doubts”.

Don Alejandro Cirillo is the elected leader of the National Mayan Council of Elders of Guatemala and a thirteenth generation Quiche priest.  He believes that 2012 shall be characterized by major earth changes, probably earthquakes and floods, but most significantly by a darkening of the Sun that will last many days where electricity will fail, crops will fail and we will not be able to buy clean water, fresh food or fresh air.  When the Sun returns, this will signal the start of a new world age.

2012 is expected to bring about the fifth world of creation, marked by the return of ether, the fifth element allowing for the fusion of polarities changing forever the nature of material things and the start of the fifth root race according to Edgar Cayce.


Some researchers believe that when the boundary of the galactic plane is reached, you get a kind of Coriolis Effect, changing or reversing the resonance we experience coming from the galactic center.

The Mayans calculated the orbit of Venus with amazing accuracy and detail.  Venus transits the Sun in pairs of transit 8 years apart.  On June 6, 2012 Venus will transit the Sun.  Venus last transited the Sun on June 8, 2004.  In 2004, Ronald Reagan died three days before the Venus transit took place on June 8th.  And two days after the transit, the beloved Ray Charles passed away as well.

The Mayans considered the first appearance of Venus as an evil omen and considered it to be a good day for warfare.  They viewed the transit as the warrior twin of Venus.  The first sighting of the morning star that was frequently represented by bloody situations.  The Mayans glyph for the Venus transit shows the Chief holding the severed heads of his enemy with blood trailing from the victim’s neck.

Prior to June 2004 transit, the last transit occurred in 1761 and 1769.  Future Venus-Sun transits will occur in December 2117 and December 2125.


EARTHQUAKE PREDICTIONS FOR 2012
 Major Earthquake coming for North America at about 8.0 magnitude.  Once this earthquake strikes the west coast of California, they shall not stop.  The eastern side of the Pacific Ring of Fire shall become activated forcing people to move from California to Arizona and adjoining states.  Watch the San Joaquin Valley! This earthquake is likely to send oil and food prices soaring, triggering massive inflation and collapse of the dollar.

A major earthquake shall also strike Northwest, USA in the Montana/Wyoming/Colorado area east of the Rockies!

6.1 – 6.6 million people shall be overtaken by earthquakes.

Florida shall come under heavy flooding around June 2012.

USGS world earthquake activity map on the Internet shall show lots of earthquakes striking all over the world, all at the same time, throughout Asia, Middle East, and Europe in an almost even-spaced distribution!  These earthquakes shall range from 5.0 to 7.0 magnitude.

POLE SHIFT
 Some researchers believe that we may experience a reversal of the Sun’s polarity that may trigger the possible reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, which all could be triggered by a celestial phenomenon coming from out of the dark region of the Milky Way Galaxy.

NEPTUNE IN PISCES
 Neptune ingress of the astrological sign of Pisces on February 4th, 2012 promises to fulfill the meaning of the word ‘Maya,’ which means illusion.  Illusion is a veil of consciousness.  Being the ruler of the mutable signs, Neptune sits on the rim of the known versus the unknown.  It promises that we shall have new thoughts and ideas of things that we have never thought of before.  The mysteries of Mayan prophecies and 2012 predictions shall be revealed to us as time marches on, but few if any will have their expectations met on what Mayan 2012 prophecy and cosmology is all about.  One thing is almost certain, as we move through 2012 to meet 2013 and 2014, the Mayan Long Count calendar shall give birth and impetus to a new string of research and understanding that shall transform our understanding of astrology, astronomy and cosmology forever!

LOOKING AHEAD
Much of the current world order is crumbling; the environment is under attack. In almost every sphere of life things seems to be falling apart.  It is self evident that we are reaching an ending of some sort, a point of crisis if you wish – terminal saturation according to Riley Martin!

At a minimum, Mayan 2012 prophecy assurance us that a new world is coming, that there shall be a new beginning, a new dawning and new recreation of the current world order. Our role and place in that world is unknown.  We saw what happened to the Mayans, how they were brutally treated by their conquerors. We also saw what happened to just about every other civilization since the dawn of creation.  Case in point, the Library of Alexandria; how those precious, irreplaceable books were burned three times over the course of history just to extinguish their light.  The people of enlightenment throughout the ages and the history of the world since the start of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 3114 BC have all been under attack and most have been destroyed.  No period was more destructive than the Age of Pisces (55 BC to 1781 AD) that brought us into total darkness and complete utter ignorance.  Conquerors hate light, they hate to assimilate or learn from those whom they conquer.  There is no reason to believe that we will be spared similar fate, catastrophes, annihilation or destruction.  Nothing under the Sun gives us that divine right and privilege.  It seems to be the path of nature to destroy and recreate.

At best, we can look around and observe what is dying and what is on the rise in our personal life and in society. We have lost faith in government.  Pastors and priests no longer serve us anymore.  Money is abundant but not evenly distributed.  In the abundance of great wealth, people and animals are dying and suffering.  Technology is on the rise.  How will the blessings and seed of technology become our worst nightmare in the future?  Already this is expressing itself in the unemployment lines.  There needs to be a realignment of values.  But how will this come about?  Who will start it?  What will trigger a realignment of the global society?  These are the unanswered questions that Mayan 2012 prophecies beg us to ponder.


CONCLUSION
 We have reached a point in time where oil, money and technology can no longer sustain us.  Venus transit of the Sun shall demand that we seek the natural order questioning intensively the road upon which we have traveled since the fall in 9,500 B.C.  We have moved out of the Golden Age, the Garden of Eden of prehistory and have developed a profound understanding and control of natural forces and have uniquely developed the capacity to dominate and extinguish all life forms on planet Earth.  On the verge of committing ecocide, we have become the agent of death for the world’s ecological system.  Who or what shall become our agent of death other than ourselves?  Within the twinkling of an eye we have become space travelers embarking on a planetary and cosmic journey of inter-galactic dimensions.

Mayan Long Count calendar and predictions ask us to question our role in the universe and on the planet in particular.  We can no longer hide from the enormous burdens and responsibilities that the new age demands of us as individuals or as a society.  Mayan 2012 prophecies demand that we pay close attention to detail least we delude ourselves into believing that we are in any way, shape or form different from our brothers and sisters that walk this Earth or any of the creatures of the land, air and seas that live in the flesh.

We are on the cusp of our own evolutionary path that shall lead to a higher human form that is now in the process of being changed or re-birthed!  Since our creation, but more accurately, since the event of the Flood, we have been in the midst of two different evolutionary paths: one of the masters of space and time and the other of the extinct hominids that preceded us.  As time marches on, we are slowly and slowly being disconnected from the path of the sky gods and native hominids, and more and more we are coming into our own being of who we are and were intended to be.  Hence, the development of man is not complete, and for this we must press on and be prepared to endure a lot!

Antot Masuka
NCGR – Ingres
Copyright © 2011 – All Rights Reserved
antot@celestialaffairs.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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from:    http://www.newrealities.com/index.php/articles-on-shamanism/item/1844-year-of-destiny-2012-journey-through-time-and-the-cosmos-by-antot-masuka

fr/Doreen Virtue Archangel Michael on 2012

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Doreen Virtue: Archangel Michael Message for 2012

posted 1 January, 2012, 298 views, no comments –

From meditations and prayers, the messages for 2012 are: continuous clearing and shielding of lower energies is essential right now. Do this daily. Shield yourself vigilantly. The dichotomy of darkness and light is at a peak right now, like high noon when the shadows appear the darkest. The darkness has an effect similar to ticks upon a dog, and must be addressed and not ignored . . . or it will grow bigger. Don’t fear the darkness, as this just gives fuel and power to it (which in spiritual truth is nothingness). The darkness is afraid because it knows that its time to rule is drawing to a close. We must also devote daily time to praying for everyone’s abundance, health, and happiness. Your contribution to the light is essential right now. Everyone’s participation in acknowledging the non-material world is essential. Daily prayer for world peace is extremely helpful. You can make a huge positive difference by praying for everyone.

Check out this link for Doreen’s Full Message:

from:  http://www.youtube.com/user/4AngelTherapy?feature=watch

 

 

 

2011’s Odd Animal Tales

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10 Wacky Animal Stories of 2011

Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 28 December 2011 Time: 08:13 AM ET
Cyclops shark caught in Mexico.
The fisherman who caught the shark is keeping his specimen.
CREDIT: Marcela Bejarano

As the year draws to a close, here’s a look back at some of the weirdest animal discoveries of 2011. From transvestite birds to zombie caterpillars and our own set of animal superheroes, it’s been a wacky ride.

#1. A-Flock-Alypse?

This year started with a bang as scores of birds fell from the skies in January. The “aflockalypse” as it became called, harkened back for many to their first time watching Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “The Birds,” but experts agreed that the birds’ and fish’s mass deaths were just coincidental.

It started with the mysterious deaths of thousands of blackbirds in Arkansas and Louisiana around New Years’ eve; this was followed by several reports of dead fish washing ashore and many more “massive” animal die-offs. In the end, the bang with which it all started was probably fireworks, which initially killed the blackbirds. Researchers agree the best explanation so far is the fireworks’ noise and lights may have scared or disoriented the birds, causing them to fatally injure themselves flying into buildings, water towers and trees. The wide pickup of the original blackbird story probably set off the media attention later stories received, but these kind of die-offs are normal, researchers and ecologists say.

#2. Zombie Ants

The year was a big one for zombie insects. Reports of mind-controlled ants and caterpillars were enough to creep out even the least squeamish.

In May, in the journal BMC Ecology, researcher David Hughes from Pennsylvania State University reported that a parasitic fungus infects forest ants to fulfill its bidding. The fungus fills the ant’s head with fungal cells and changes its muscles so the ant can grab a leaf in a death grip just when and where the fungus wants it — specifically, the zombie ants all bite down around noon, then all die together around sunset, like some weird fungus-addled ant cult. The fungus then bursts out of the ants’ heads and spreads its spores to its next unwitting victim.

Another report in September found the genetic culprit that sends caterpillars to the treetops, where they liquefy and rain infectious death down on their peers. The virus that zombifies these gypsy moth caterpillars also makes sure they grow as large as possible so they spread infectious viruses far and wide, said study researcher Kelli Hoover, of Pennsylvania State University. They also send the caterpillars crawling up trees in the middle of the day, when they are most vulnerable to bird attacks.

#3. The mouse with two dads

In a wacky feat of genetic engineering and a stem-cell switcheroo, researchers created the first mouse baby from the genes of two male mice — a mouse that literally has two dads. The mousey Dr. Frankensteins, from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, turned cells from Dad No. 1 into X-only stem cells, which they injected into an egg to make a female mouse, which was then fertilized by sperm from Dad No. 2.

The study, published in the journal Biology of Reproduction, is the first step to making human children from two men, though that is a long way away. This mean feat of genetic engineering was also dubbed by LiveScience reporter Stephanie Pappas as “scientific progress at its cutest” when she met the mice in person.

#4. Animals with superhero senses

Scientists aren’t the only ones turning miraculous tricks this year. Mother Nature has a few up her sleeve as well. Animal super senses turned up in dolphins and vampire bats in 2011, and even one possible sixth sense in humans made an appearance.

Researchers at Rostock University in Germany discovered that the common Guiana dolphin has a special sixth sense: It can sense electric fields with a special organ on its snout. While the ability is common in fish, the dolphins are the first placental mammal (as opposed to a marsupial mammal) found to sense electricity, which they probably use to find fish in the shallow, murky waters they call home.

In other odd animal senses, researchers discovered in August that the vampire bat can “see” heat from veins and arteries using a special organ on its nose that is incredibly sensitive to heat. The bat uses this organ to find blood meals and to bite the right part of the skin: A mouthful of hair is unappetizing to these little bloodthirsty critters.

A possible extra human sense also made an appearance this year. A human protein, when expressed in fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields. The researchers caution that the protein might not work that way in humans, though. Sorry, Magneto wannabees.

#5. Strange sperm

It may not be super, but strange sperm abounds in the animal kingdom.

Studies in naked mole rat sperm show that these weird little creatures also have weird little sperm. In any other animals their sperm samples wouldn’t pass quality control, but these eusocial underground rodents make do just fine with their mutant sperm, a study published in the December issue of the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows.

Ducks also have special sperm properties, another 2011 study shows. Their sperm contains antibiotics that might protect them and their mates from sexually transmitted infections. The brighter their bill is, the better their sperm is at killing off bacterial invaders, suggests the study published in April in the journal Biology Letters.

#6. More strange sex

Sperm wasn’t the only weird animal-sex finding of 2011. Multiple studies found everything from hermaphroditic bulldogs to sexually confused fish and birds.

The bulldog Bijou is genetically female, but has some physical properties of a male dog, including a prostate gland and testicles. Researchers are stumped as to why this pup, and another bulldog, Tana, had these male characteristics without male genes.

Other animal he-shes are also stumping researchers this year: A cardinal with half-male, half-female coloring seems to be a genetic anomaly, with half-female and half-male cells. Several sex-changing birds also made the news in 2011, including a female chicken that transformed into a rooster in the United Kingdom over a few weeks time. Researchers think that a tumor or cyst may have caused the switch.

Some birds of prey don female plumage, but don’t actually change gender. These transvestite marsh harriers use such sexual mimicry to fool other males into leaving them alone, researchers reported this year.

#7. Cyclops shark

Strange sex-changing animals weren’t the only weirdoes nature threw at us this year. A Photoshop-quality image of a fetal shark with one eye stunned researchers and cybergawkers alike when it made the news in October. The one-eyed fetus was cut from the belly of a shark in the Gulf of California, but would not likely have survived outside of the womb.

“This is extremely rare,” shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana of Mexico’s Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog in July. “As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded.” [Photos of Cyclops Shark]

Other, less scientifically based reports of Yeti nest sightings and hair samples from Russia splashed the news this year. And scientists reported finding the lair of a ‘Kraken’ sea monster, though the interpretation of the finding has not been substantiated.

#8. Fishy sexual harassment

Several advancements in the field of fishy sexual harassment made the news this year, indicating that Trinidadian guppies seem to have more gossipy drama and sexual tension than an episode of “Sex in the City.”

A study published in October showed that when a harassing male chases down female guppies, they are more likely to get in fights with other females. The sexually charged males stress these females out so much they end up turning on each other, the researchers said.

Another study showed that these same guppies, when harassed, pair up with prettier females, whose presence draws attention away from themselves.

#9. Animals with protective poisons

Scientists have long understood that plants use poison to defend themselves, but traditionally animals are thought to defend themselves with weapons like sharp teeth and claws. In 2011, a number of animals were discovered to wield poisons of their own.

By utilizing the same plants that African tribesmen use to poison their arrows, the furry fury known as the African crested rat can incapacitate and even kill predators many times its size, research published in August found. The rat chews poisonous bark and spits the poison onto its furt coat, which has specialized hairs with pores to absorb the animal’s poisonous spit, which protects them against predators like dogs.

Another odd animal poison discovered in 2011 is the cyanide-sweating millipede discovered in September. When disturbed, the bugs emit a toxic cyanide goo and foul-tasting chemicals that deter predators looking for a snack. Luckily for its predators this odd insect also has a nighttime glow to warn predators of its poisonous secretions

#10. The loudest genitals

One loud little insect makes a big call, from an unorthodox organ. Research published in July indicates that by using its genitals, the water boatman makes the loudest song for its size: At less than one-tenth of an inch (2.3 millimeters) long, it calls out to mates at over 99 decibels, as loud as an orchestra. The odd insect’s song from the depths of a river can even be heard along its banks, the researchers said, and is likely created when the animal rubs its genitals against ridges on its body, though the scientists aren’t sure how the sound gets so loud.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17652-10-wacky-animal-stories-2011.html

Oh So Human Traits To Think About

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The New Year’s Resolution We Should Be Making

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 30 December 2011 Time: 03:16 PM ET
New Year's clock at a minute to midnight.
The time to enact New Year’s resolutions draws closer.
CREDIT: Csaba Peterdi, Shutterstock

We all know that popular New Year’s resolutions involve dieting, exercise and the nixing of bad habits. But what if we could fix things we didn’t even know were wrong with us?

Even good people have mental weaknesses. Just ask psychologists, whose research often turns up sour news on the human psyche. We can be jealous and arrogant, willing to look the other way when horrible things are going on, and even the nicest of us harbor subtle racial bias.

In our best New Year’s fashion, we asked social scientists to tell us what they see as the worst hidden weaknesses of humans — and whether there’s anything we can do to overcome them. Their responses suggest that this year, we should all resolve to see things from others’ perspectives.

We Fear the Other

One unflattering trait we share with many other animals is Fear of the Other, which is just the flipside of a rather clinging, excessive and obsessive love of (Just Like) Me. Social psychologists call this “in-group” bias; cognitive psychologists see its advantages in fluent, speeded-up processing of the familiar. We’re long used to who we are, and so no real thought is necessary to deal with ourselves. Thus, in order to preserve our precious laziness of thought, we heavily invest in surrounding ourselves with people just like us. We segregate into neighborhoods and work and leisure environments where any others closely approximate us in age, race, income, political allegiance and even sexual orientation or the accepted type of facial hair.

The consequence is that we never get to meet anyone who isn’t like us. This, in turn, leads to failing to imagine any Other, and to a loss of desire to even consider the Other as someone who exists, a real human being just like us, except not just like us. At its most innocent, all this fencing-in creates little upticks in closed-mindedness inside one person’s skull — missed opportunities for jolts of fun or learning. At its worst, for instance when manipulated by clever demagogues who realize that nothing binds us together more than fear of that ultimate other, the imagined enemy, it leads to the Holocaust, Vietnam, Rwanda, Darfur, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and so on.

What to do? Go visit. Uncozy yourself. Get a move on. Practice loving-kindness with someone truly other. (If you’re in academia, maybe take your Republican-voting pariah colleague out for lunch, and listen for a change.) Or, at the very least, next time you find yourself at lunch agreeing with everyone’s astute observations, do realize: “Well, duh.”

— Paul Verhaeghen, professor of cognition and brain science at Georgia Tech

We indulge in ill-informed stereotypes

We’ve been busting myths about women since the 1960s; it’s time we bust some myths about men. Single in America, a 2011 national study of singles based on the U.S. census and conducted by Match.com (and myself), does this in spades.

This study clearly shows that men are just as eager to marry; 33 percent of both sexes want to say “I do.” Moreover, men in every age group are more eager to have children: 51 percent of men age 21 to 34 want kids, while 46 percent of women in this age range yearn for offspring. Men are less picky about a partner, too. Fewer men “must have” or regard it as “very important” to have a mate of the same ethnic background (20 percent of men versus 29 percent of women); and fewer say they “must have” or regard it as “very important” to have a partner of the same religion (17 percent of men versus 28 percent of women). And get this: Men experience love at first sight more often; just as many men under age 35 believe you can stay married to the same person forever (84 percent); and in a committed relationship, men are less likely to want nights out with friends (23 percent versus 35 percent of women); less eager to keep a separate bank account (47 percent versus 66 percent of women); and less keen to take a vacation on their own (8 percent versus 12 percent).  [Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom and Beyond]

I study the brain in love. My colleagues and I have put over 80 men and women into a brain scanner (MRI), and we found no gender differences in romantic passion. This Single in America study tells it like it is: Men are just as eager to find a partner, fall in love, commit long term and raise a family. And the sooner journalists (particularly those writing for women’s magazines), social scientists (particularly those convinced that men are evil), TV and radio talk-show hosts, and all the rest of humanity that berates men begin to embrace these findings, the faster we will find — and keep — the love we want.

— Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist at Rutgers University and the chief scientific advisor of Match.com

We go with our gut

The emerging view in psychology is that morality is something we feel more than think. Rather than reasoning our way to decide what is right and what is wrong, there is now overwhelming evidence to suggest that moral evaluations are “gut” reactions that we justify after the fact with what seem like principled arguments. This simple truth is the source of both humankind’s most ennobling acts of kindness and some of its most-callous and malicious misdeeds.

When victims of misfortune are close to us — when we can see and feel their suffering — we are capable of incredible generosity and self-sacrifice. When our connection to victims is less visceral, however, even when we “know” full well of their suffering in a
cognitive sense, we are often unmoved by their plight and able to rationalize our inaction. Heinous acts committed by people or groups whom we love and admire can be excused as necessary or accidental, just as relatively benign acts of our enemies are often imbued with evil intent and taken as justification for retribution. Our tendency to mistake what we feel for what we think, especially in the realm of moral judgment and
decision-making, plays a central role in intergroup conflict and moral hypocrisy, and because the problem lies as much in our guts as in our minds, it is a challenging weakness to overcome.

My suggestion to friends is to turn the emotional table by submitting judgments to the “shoe on the other foot test.” When faced with a difficult moral choice, ask yourself how you would feel and what you would do if a victim of misfortune was your loved one, or the perpetrator of some morally questionable act was you.

— Peter Ditto, professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine

We lack empathy

In my view, the most pervasive limitation in people is the ability to accurately understand the feelings and needs of others, and to fully appreciate their own impact on other people.

This ability is typically conceptualized in terms of “empathy,” “emotional intelligence,” “social intelligence” or “interpersonal intelligence,” and it clearly varies in strength from person to person.

While I think that people broadly recognize the value of this ability for selfish gain (e.g., to be an adept communicator, or to “charm” others), it also plays a critical role in caring for others — empathy most certainly does this in motivating altruistic behavior.

As to what can be done about this limitation? Can we strengthen our ability to be in tune with others and be less focused on the self? I think it begins with endeavoring to hold to the “golden rule” that we should treat others as we wish to treated, and also by trying to imagine ourselves on the outside interacting with us — as someone else on the outside, would like who we are very much? Would we consider ourselves kind, compassionate and considerate, or self-centered, selfish and thoughtless?

In short, always try to put yourself in the other’s position before speaking or acting —sounds rather obvious and simple, but it turns out to be quite a bit more difficult than one might think, and I believe a persistent challenge in our interpersonal relationships, both casual and close, that we face throughout our emotional and intellectual development.

— Jordan Litman, psychologist at the University of South Florida

We act out of self-preservation

One of the most disturbing things I have learned about people is that they are very self-protective, sometimes at the expense of others. My research in sexual harassment demonstrates that people will blame others in a manner that protects their own interests. People who unconsciously find themselves to be similar to victims of sexual harassment will assign a relatively stronger level of blame to sexual harassers. This is not particularly disturbing; what is disturbing is that people who unconsciously find themselves to be similar to sexual harassers tend to let people off the hook for sexual harassment and even go so far to blame the victims of the harassment. They seem to kick these people (typically women) when they are down. This added insult to injury compounds the negative psychological effects of harassment.

Furthermore, the reason for blaming victims of harassment may relate to the same reason they harass in the first place — an inability to see the perspective of others. Harassers and those similar to harassers cannot really see the world from the perspective of other people. They find their own behavior to be normal, acceptable in part because they simply cannot or refuse to see what it does to other people. If you were to boil this message down to a New Year’s resolution, I would say to always try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes before you do something stupid. It’s amazing what people will do without considering others’ feelings.

— Colin Key, professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Martin

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17688-years-hidden-weaknesses.html

2011’s Weirdest Stories

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The Weirdest Stories of 2011

Life’s Little Mysteries Staff
Date: 30 December 2011 Time: 04:55 PM ET

cloud face
A video shot by a Canadian man appears to show clouds taking the shape of a man’s face.
CREDIT: denisfarmer

Every year, dozens of weird new stories and surprising scientific findings grab headlines across the world. From clouds that looked like Abraham Lincoln to doomsday predictions to research on the psychological roots of alien abductions, 2011 didn’t disappoint. Here, a sampling of the weirdest stories of the year:

Eagle-eyed users of Google Maps spotted several giant, mysterious structures laid out throughout China. Mystery solved: They’re calibration targets for spy satellites.

A YouTube enthusiast spotted a planet-size UFO near Mercury; that one turned out to be an imaging artifact.

Yeti researchers claimed they found “indisputable proof” of the mysterious beast in Russia. Months later, a supposed yeti finger was subjected to DNA analysis and found to be of human origin.

A coroner in Ireland declared a man died of spontaneous human combustion. Meanwhile, a crematorium in England unveiled its plans to convert heat from burning corpses into electricity. Perhaps alarmed by this, a 50-year-old “dead” man woke up after 24 hours in a morgue.

For unknown reasons, 2011 saw a rash of reports of Serbian children who were, supposedly, magnetic.

Lots of funny stuff was spotted in the skies. A swarm of insects in Iowa formed what’s known as a “bugnado,” and clouds in Canada closely resembled Abraham Lincoln’s profile.

A scientist in California conducted several studies that suggest alien abductions and visions of angels are, in fact, very vivid dreams.

Howard Camping, a radio evangelist, predicted, twice, that the world would come to an end in 2011. A spokesperson for Camping says he plans to make no doomsday predictions for 2012.

Dozens of bizarre Guinness World Records standards were set in 2011, but this one got the most double takes: The world’s largest bra was unveiled in London. It was size 1222B. Oh, and the world’s hairiest girl was crowned.

Scientists reported that, if you’ve lost your TV remote, there’s a 49 percent chance it’s wedged in between your couch cushions.

Fans celebrating a touchdown by Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch created a mini-earthquake.

Early in the year, art historians suggested that the woman portrayed in da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” might actually have been a dude. Mysteries abound about the most famous painting in the world, including the new claim that there are secret codes painted in her eyes.

Plenty of weird happenings also took place in the ocean.  A surfer was spotted riding a great white shark, a sea monster washed up along New York City’s East River, and oceanographers discovered a “flying saucer” that crashed in the ocean.

And finally – disgustingly – racehorse owners in New Zealand were given permission to sell stallion semen as an energy drink. Drinking it will give you “as much zizz as a stallion for a week afterwards,” one vendor claimed.

FROM:    http://www.livescience.com/17694-weirdest-news-stories-2011.html

2011’s Health & Happiness Lessons

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Top 10 Health & Happiness Lessons of 2011

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 31 December 2011 Time: 09:28 AM ET

Skiing at Snowmass, CO.
Outdoorsy Colorado remained the slimmest state in America in 2011.
CREDIT: Marcin Moryc, Shutterstock

A lengthy job search promotes worry, stress and anger, but a bad job is worse for happiness than no job at all.

Those findings are on the Gallup polling agency’s list of most compelling findings about health and happiness in 2011. The agency queries tens of thousands of Americans every year about their health, well-being and happiness. The resulting Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is a day-by-day measurement of America’s mental state. Here’s what Gallup’s editors say intrigued them the most this year:

1. Long job searches are bad for well-being

The longer Americans search for jobs, the unhappier they are with their lives, according to a Gallup poll analysis released in February. Only 34 percent of unemployed Americans who had been looking for work for at least 11 weeks said they were “thriving” in life, compared with 47 percent of those who had been looking for 10 weeks or less. Sending out more job applications with no luck had a similar effect: Half of people who had sent out fewer than 10 applications said they were thriving, compared with 32 percent of those who had sent out more.

2. More Americans now normal-weight than overweight

For the first time in three years, more Americans qualified as “normal weight” than “overweight,” according to poll data released in October. That poll found 36.6 percent of Americans had a body mass index (BMI) placing them in the “normal” category, compared with 35.8 percent who were classified as overweight.

Still, 25.8 percent of Americans qualified for the more severe condition of being obese, defined by a BMI of 30 or higher. BMI is calculated using weight and height. That meant the majority of Americans – 61.6  percent –  are still in weight ranges that put them at higher risk for health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]

3. Fewer young adults go without health insurance

A growing number of young Americans had health coverage in 2011, thanks to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26. Since that rule went into effect in 2010, Gallup found, the number of uninsured 18- to 25-year-olds without insurance dropped by 3.8 percentage points, to 24.2 percent.

However, the proportion of 26- to 64-year-olds without insurance increased over the same time period, from 18.1 percent to 19.9 percent. Overall, the survey found, 17.4 percent of Americans lacked health insurance in the second quarter of 2011.

4. Colorado is America’s skinniest state

An August Gallup report revealed that Colorado, with an obesity rate of 20.1 percent, remains the skinniest of the states. West Virginia had the heftiest population, with 34.3 percent of its people obese. That’s the highest rate Gallup has measured since it began obesity tracking in 2008.

Although Colorado is relatively svelte today, its current population would be the fattest in America if the state were to travel back in time 20 years. In 1991, not a single state reported an obesity rate of more than 20 percent.

5. Americans struggle to afford food

Obesity rates aside, Americans actually had a harder time affording food and other basic necessities in 2011 than in recent years. When asked if they always had enough money to buy food in the last year, 79.8 percent of Americans said yes, the lowest number since November 2008. At that time, the start of the economic crisis, 79.4 percent of Americans said they never struggled to afford groceries.

The reasons for these patterns is not entirely clear, Gallup reported in November.

6. “Suffering” holds steady

Four percent of Americans said in September that their lives were so bad that they were “suffering,” a number that has held steady for 2½ years. That’s one of the lowest rates in the world, Gallup reported in October. Perhaps unsurprisingly, income and suffering were correlated, with people making less than $24,000 a year about six times more likely to describe themselves as suffering as those with incomes over $90,000 a year.

7. Employers are offering less health coverage

Employer-based health insurance is on the decline in America, with only 44.5 percent of Americans getting health coverage through work in the third quarter of 2011. That percentage has been on a steady decline since Gallup began tracking health insurance numbers in 2008, when the rate was 49.8 percent. There has been a simultaneous increase in the number of Americans getting their health insurance from the government (up to 25.1 percent from 22.9 percent) as well as an increase in people without any insurance at all (up to 17.3 percent from 14.6 percent).

8. Americans caring for each other

While working a day job, one in six Americans also acts as a caregiver for an elderly or disabled family member, Gallup reported in July. The caregiver job was most prevalent in the 45- to 64-year-old age demographic, with 22 percent of people in that group reporting caregiving responsibilities. Women were more likely to be caregivers for a needy relative than men were, 20 percent to 16 percent.

9. Bad health costs $153 billion a year

Weight-related health issues and other chronic problems cause American workers to miss an estimated 450 million days of work more each year than normally healthy workers, Gallup reported in October. That absenteeism costs more than $153 billion in lost productivity annually.

Normal-weight workers without chronic health conditions experience about 4 days a year when health interferes with their normal activities. Workers who are overweight and obese with one or two chronic conditions average 13 “unhealthy” days a year, while overweight or obese workers with three or more chronic conditions report 42 unhealthy days annually.

Workers do not take all of these “unhealthy” days as sick days, but Gallup researchers calculated that workers miss about one day of work for every three unhealthy days they experience.

10. A bad job is worse than no job

Workers who are emotionally disengaged from their jobs view their lives more negatively than workers who have no job at all, Gallup reported in March. Forty-two percent of the people who said they felt disconnected from their work and workplaces described themselves as “thriving” in life, compared with 48 percent of the unemployed. Workers who were happily engaged and enthusiastic with work were happiest in life. Of that group, 71 percent said they were thriving.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17695-10-health-happiness-lessons.html

Massive earthquake Shakes Japan

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Massive deep earthquake sends a vibration all over Japan

Last update: January 1, 2012 at 1:45 pm by By

Earthquake overview : A massive earthquake occurred in the hot solid mantle of the earth.  Due to the focal depth of 370 km this earthquake has been felt all over Japan. The earthquake was however harmless due to the weakened impact.

Intensity map courtesy JMA Japan

Update : The hypocenter of this earthquake was far too deep to generate a tsunami.

Update :  Values of other seismological agencies
EMSC : 7.0 at 365 km
GEOFON : 6.7 at 361 km
CEN : 7.0 at 360 km

The earthquake must have been felt by millions of people.

A little bit to our surprise the shaking was strongest in the greater Tokyo area (see yellow bullets on the JMA map) , although other areas in Japan felt it as a weak shaking and were located closer to the epicenter. Part of the reason will certainly be the propagation of the wave.

The earthquake was calculated to be felt as a weak shaking based on the USGS Data, however the Japanese seismological agency JMA reported a V MMI (moderate shaking). These values are approx.  4 JMA (Japanese use another seismic intensity scale)

Very strong but very deep earthquake with an hypocenter (focal depth) in the hot solid mantle of the earth. Based on calculations of the seismological centers, only a weak shaking will have been felt in a very wide area. The epicenter was located in between a lot of submarine volcanoes .

Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 7.0 (JMA) 6.8 (USGS)
UTC Time : Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 05:27:54 UTC
Local time at epicenter :  Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 02:27:54 PM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 370 km (JMA) 349 km (USGS)
Geo-location(s) :
242 km (150 miles) SW of Hachijo-jima, Izu Islands, Japan
365 km (226 miles) S of Hamamatsu, Honshu, Japan
393 km (244 miles) S of Shizuoka, Honshu, Japan
495 km (307 miles) SSW of TOKYO, Japan

for more information and updates go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2012/01/01/massive-deep-earthquake-sends-a-vibration-all-over-japan/