TIme for a Leap of FAith

Posted on August 23, 2014 by marcia

Spiritual Leap Of Faith

BY: Kim Hutchinson
Clayhut Healing Centre

The theme of owning one’s power keeps coming up in my healings, readings and conversations. As a response to encouraging people to stand in their power, I am frequently met with unbridled fear. Never have I had so many people in such crisis over the same issue. This is obviously a collective consciousness blockage which needs to be purged.

What is a spiritual leap of faith?

Imagine that you are leisurely driving along the Road of Life, a meandering country lane. You are on your way to Enlightenment Town, a Shangri-La of spiritual awareness, Oneness and Divine Love. Accompanying you on this trip are some great friends. These angelic guides are lovingly assisting you all along your journey.

Suddenly, without warning, the road comes to an abrupt end. You stomp on the brake pedal with both feet, and your car skids to the very edge of the precipice. There, before you, lies nothing but open air….no road, no land, just sky and clouds. Gingerly you exit your vehicle and creep towards the edge of the cliff. Your breath quickens as you peer ever-so carefully over the sheer cliff face. The land below is so far away that the trees look like matchsticks. Your gaze shifts upward and you squint hard trying to see what lies on the other side. Alas, it’s too far away.

You turn to your friends and bemoan the fact that there’s no bridge. Your friends tell you that there is in fact a bridge there, but that you can’t see it. They explain that you must cross this chasm unaided, using faith as your only support. You can’t imagine anything more insane, and so you argue with them, but to no avail. They are adamant that you can do it.

Your friends’ lack of assistance, coupled with the daunting and seemingly impossible task ahead, causes you to react with fear, and that fear turns into anger. Instead of taking the leap of faith, you plunk yourself on the ground and cross your arms in defiance. You refuse to move forward without their help. You even consider turning back. You are at an impasse.

Owning your power

At some point in everyone’s spiritual reawakening process, you must make a leap of faith. This point in your journey back to Oneness almost always appears with little or no warning. Although unspeakably frightening, the leap is unavoidable and very necessary. Not only is it mandatory, but it must also be achieved by you alone. No one can assist you, for to do so would defeat its purpose. It serves to help you own, and stand in, your spiritual power.

Ego is the problem, not Spirit

Your ego is scared and so it’s throwing up road blocks everywhere it can. It doesn’t want you to take that leap of faith. It’s telling you to go back where it’s ‘safe’. Since the ego is connected to your left brain, it uses your intellect to rationalize away the need for this leap.

Ego is very good at arguing its case, and it (temporarily) wins almost every argument with spirit. That’s because your soul doesn’t argue. It just states the truth quietly, and then stands in that truth. The ego clamors to be heard; the soul whispers. The ego is clever; the soul, authentic.

The leap from the head to the heart

The chasm you must cross is the one from the brain to the heart. You must to leap from one side (earthly/ ego/ brain/ male) to the other (spiritual/ soul/ heart/ female). Once you fully cross into the heart, your ego will never have the same control over you. That fear you’re feeling is the stemming from the ego’s false belief in its impending demise. Ego believes it is fighting for its life.

What the ego doesn’t know is that the soul will lovingly incorporate the ego into your whole Being, and will nurture and protect you in a way that ego never could. In other words, this leap of faith will make your ego a very happy camper; that is, once you get across to the other side. So, you must make this crossing despite your ego’s protests.

Dealing with ego’s arguments

“I can’t do it.”

Actually, you can do it; otherwise, the challenge would not have appeared. Don’t believe your ego. It is making you feel powerless. It wants someone to help you; yet, if your guides give in, they would only be compounding your feelings of powerlessness. The only cure is for you to take the leap of faith. It’s the only way to discover of what you are really capable.

“I’m not ready!”

This leap of faith opportunity would not have appeared unless you were ready. Your higher self and angelic guides do not make mistakes. You don’t have to believe or feel you’re ready in order to be ready. In fact, the majority of spiritual seekers do not feel ready when presented with their leap of faith challenge. Your human incarnation has never encountered anything like this before, so how could it feel ready? Thankfully, this has nothing to do with your mind/ego/human side. The leap is a spiritual feat.

“This is crazy! I’ll fail/get hurt.”

The leap may look impossible, but it’s actually designed to strengthen your spiritual confidence. Without this extreme challenge, would you ever be willing to fly solo? Or, would you ever come to appreciate how incredibly gifted and intuitive you are? Most people feel “less than” until they are forced to discover of what they are truly capable.

“I don’t know what to do, or how to do it.”

If your spiritual guides have presented you with a leap of faith challenge, then that’s your assurance that you do know what to do; you just don’t know with your human brain. You need to tap into your intuition. Whether or not you feel intuitively capable, remember that your intuition is like a muscle. The more you use it, the better it gets. No one can work it out for you. That would be like taking you to a gym and demonstrating how to lift weights. Unless you’re doing the work, you’re not developing your intuitive muscle.

“I won’t do it, and you can’t make me!”

You’re right; you have free will. You are not required to do anything your spirit and angels suggest. But, if you are serious about owning your power, their guidance is golden. (Have they ever led you astray?) The next step is really up to you.

Spread your wings and fly, baby bird!

Like mama and papa birds, your angels and soul are telling you it’s time to leave the nest. Their urging doesn’t mean they don’t love you anymore. Quite the contrary! They love you so much that they want you to know the exhilaration of flight.

The ego’s supreme belief in its inability to survive the leap of faith is the only thing standing in your way. If you could silence your ego long enough to enter your heart, then you could establish the connection with spirit that will empower you. Then you could sprout wings and fly cross the chasm. But if you continue to listen to ego and its fears, you will never know how amazing you are, or how high you could soar.

How to shift from ego/mind to heart/soul

Your head is not your friend right now. The heart is the key. That’s your place of peace and fearlessness. In order to stay heart-centered, here are some suggestions:

Draw a labyrinth in the sand and then slowly walk it
Go earthing (walk barefoot in the dirt or on sand)
Breathe slowly, deeply and rhythmically
Spend time with people you love
Sit beneath, and/or hug, a tree
Practice Yoga, Tai Chi or Qigong
Paint, draw, write or compose
Swim in the ocean or a lake
Play with childlike abandon
Volunteer at a soup kitchen
Go on a spiritual retreat
Pet a dog, cat or horse
Hum or Sing
Hold a baby
Meditate
Garden
Laugh

Do whatever you can to still your mind. Once ego is silenced, it’s much easier to shift your awareness to your heart. From there you can enter the sacred space of your heart along with the tiny space. Within that space dwells your soul, your connection to All That Is. Every answer you could ever want is in your heart.

Fly free, baby bird!

from: http://in5d.com/spiritual-leap-of-faith.html

Vaccine-Autism Link Data

Posted on August 23, 2014 by marcia

CDC whistleblower confesses to publishing fraudulent data to obfuscate link between vaccines and autism

Friday, August 22, 2014 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff write

(NaturalNews) A medical conspiracy of epic proportions stands to bring down the entire vaccine house of cards following the revelation that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) censored key data linking the MMR vaccine to autism. A top CDC researcher-turned-whistleblower has come forward with the truth about a study that the CDC has long claimed proves the safety of MMR, when in fact it actually shows the exact opposite.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the CDC whistleblower told Dr. Brian Hooker from the Focus Autism Foundation (FAF) that a 2004 CDC study published in the journal Pediatrics, entitled “Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children With Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta,” contains data that was deliberately manipulated to conceal the vaccine-autism connection.

Drs. Frank DeStefano, M.D., Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, M.D., and Coleen Boyle, Ph.D., all employees of the CDC, published the joint paper that looked at 624 children with autism living in the Atlanta-metro area of Georgia. These children were evaluated alongside 1,824 children without autism, all of whom were matched according to age, gender, school and time of vaccination.

Between the two groups, similar proportions of children were vaccinated both before 18 months and before 24 months, with the bulk having been vaccinated between 12 and 17 months of age. And based on this analysis, researchers say they found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, a claim that Dr. Boyle, who currently holds the position of Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the CDC, reiterated during a 2012 Congressional hearing.

CDC altered study sample size to obscure autism link, particularly in black boys

The implication, of course, is that these findings prove once and for all that MMR does not cause autism, a claim heralded by the mainstream media as undeniable fact. But according to the CDC whistleblower, everything is not as it seems when it comes to what the study actually found.

Early on in the research, it was apparently discovered that African American boys who received the MMR vaccine at three years of age or younger were 340 percent more likely to develop autism than other children. This is obviously not what the CDC wanted to find, as it betrays the loyalty that the agency has to the vaccine industry. So the CDC basically scrubbed it by paring down the sample size, excluding children who did not have a State of Georgia birth certificate.

“CDC researchers excluded children that did not have a valid State of Georgia birth certificate — reducing the sample size being studied by 41%,” explains an FAF press release on this groundbreaking discovery. “[B]y introducing this arbitrary criteria into the analysis, the cohort size was sharply reduced, eliminating the statistical power of the findings and negating the strong MMR-autism link in African American boys.”

Dr. Wakefield’s new film exposes MMR-autism coverup by CDC

What the CDC did, in essence, was recreate the original study design after it was discovered that the original one showed adverse effects associated with MMR. In other words, the CDC deliberately withheld the truth about MMR, manufacturing a false study after the fact in order to arrive at what appears to have been a predetermined outcome.

“The results of the original study first appeared in the journal Pediatrics which receives financial support from vaccine makers via advertising and direct donations,” adds the FAF announcement. “[This fraudulent study] is widely used by the CDC and other public health organizations to dismiss any link between vaccines and autism — a neurological disorder on the rise.”

For people like Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who had his career stolen from him over similar findings, this revelation is timely. No longer will the mainstream media be able to claim that no link between vaccines and autism exists, as this grand deception by the CDC proves that MMR isn’t nearly as safe as we’ve all been led to believe.

“We’ve missed 10 years of research because the CDC is so paralyzed right now by anything related to autism,” admitted the CDC whistleblower, who says he deeply regrets his previous involvement in the MMR-autism coverup. “They’re not doing what they should be doing because they’re afraid to look for things that might be associated.”

A new short film directed by Dr. Wakefield provides a visual timeline of the CDC’s misgivings concerning MMR and autism, linking the original experiment to the heinous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which was foisted on unsuspecting African Americans back in the 1930s.

You can watch Dr. Wakefield’s film for free on Vimeo:
Vimeo.com.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/046566_autism_MMR_vaccine_CDC_whistleblower.html#ixzz3BEoBeeLy

Renewed Solar Activity

Posted on August 23, 2014 by marcia

SOLAR ACTIVITY PICKS UP: A new sunspot emerging over the sun’s NE limb is bringing an uptick in solar activity. AR2149 announced itself on August 21st with an impulsive M3-class solar flare. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion’s extreme ultraviolet flash:

UV radiation from the flare partially ionized the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere. This “Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance” altered the normal propagation of VLF (very low frequency) radio transmissions over the northern hemisphere, shown here in a recording from the Polarlightcenter in Lofoten, Norway. The disturbance has since subsided.

Because AR2149 is near the sun’s eastern horizon, our view of the region is foreshortened. Evaluating the structure of its magnetic field is therefore tricky. As the sunspot turns toward Earth in the days ahead, we will get a better idea of its flare-producing potential. For now, NOAA forecasters are estimating a 25% chance of M-flares in the next 24 hours.

fr/spaceweather.com

Your Color Vibe for Saturday, 8/23

Posted on August 23, 2014 by marcia

Saturday, August 23: Muted Green

You will be very much aware of how things are different today. These sensations will come at different times and in different situations. You will be seeing things in a new light, and this can cause you to do some inner questioning. You also will be seeing those annoying tings that are not there but are there. The dimensions are particularly leaky right now, and this will continue for a while. You will also find that people are acting in new ways, as are you. Things are being said that before were left unsaid. You too find things popping out of your mouth that you did not mean to express. It is a good idea to start the day out with perspective, and this is the view from the heart center. If you act from there, what is said and done will be in accordance with WHO you are.

Picture of new lights and energies shifting into this dimension:

Cottonwood, CA UFO

Posted on August 22, 2014 by marcia

Glowing UFO caught during sunset in Cottonwood, CA On aug 10, 2014, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: August 10, 2014

Location of sighting: Cottonwood, California, USA

This came in the email today and if you have seen this UFO in Cottonwood, CA, please let us know about it in comments below. At first I believed this to be a reflection, but the beam of light coming from the UFO says its not. This looks very similar to the UFO seen over China that closed an airport. SCW

Eyewitness email report states:

My Mom and I were headed home from Red Bluff Ca headed north on I-5. We were almost to the Bowman road exit at the time the photo was taken. My Mom asked me to take a picture of the sunset. It was Aug 10, 2014 around 8:30 p.m. After turning on to Bowman Rd. heading west, I saw a bright light in the sky, but quickly lost track of it. I noticed the dates said Aug 11 on the pictures that i took on the way home. The rest of the photos that I took earlier that day were dated Aug 10. I notice it while tranfering pics from phone to pc. I checked the phone and the pc, they both had the right date and time on them.

http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2014/08/glowing-ufo-caught-during-sunset-in.html

Bardarbunga Volcano, Iceland Activity

Posted on August 22, 2014 by marcia

Earthquakes Still Rocking Iceland’s Barðarbunga

By Erik Klemetti
08.19.14 |

It has now been over 4 days of intense seismicity at Iceland Barðarbunga, located under the Vatnajökull ice cap. The latest report from the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) says that over 2,600 earthquakes, most less than M3, have occurred since the morning of August 16. The activity has shifted in its focus (see below) and is now primarily under a part of Vatnajökull that is ~600 meter thick, so any eruption would have a lot of ice to melt when the lava reaches the surface. This likely means that it would be a long time before any eruption would be noticed on the surface of the ice cap – instead, it would be glacial outburst floods (jökulhlaups) that would herald the start of the eruption. If the eruption never breaches the surface of the ice cap, there is the potential of a new tuya forming under the ice, where lava forms a broad, flat-topped mountain. Beyond the seismicity, we’ve also seen deformation around the focus of the earthquakes, suggesting magma is filling in below and needs to make space by moving the Earth’s surface. IMO says most of the seismicity is occurring at depths between 3-7 km but there aren’t signs yet that the magma is moving to shallower depths, so we still could see this all end as merely the intrusion of magma rather than an eruption. The alert status for Barðarbunga remains at Orange.

If you want to see what some of the potential scenarios, be sure to read Dr. Dave McGarvie’s article. Also, there are now two webcams pointed at the Barðarbunga area, so you can keep an eye on it if any potential eruption manifests at the surface: Mila and Mogt.is. You can also see some realtime earthquake data in 3D (note: I can’t guarantee the accuracy of this model and more recent earthquakes do not have accurate depths until they have been examined) on this interactive page.

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/earthquakes-still-rocking-icelands-bardarbunga-volcano/#more-1434361

Your Color VIbe for Frisday, 8/22

Posted on August 22, 2014 by marcia

Friday, August 22: Payne’s Grey

Well, as the pictures are showing, the energy in the yard is cranking up, even so you will feel the energy around you going into a higher gear. There is much that is happening right now, and you can feel yourself in the middle of it all, not knowing what to do, not knowing whether to go or to stay where you are, not sure whether you should try to grab one of those things whirling by or play it safe and keep you hands by your sides. Well, observation is actually the best option today. There is too much happening and too many thigns that can open up new trajectories that very possibly will spin out of control. If that were to happen, you would feel the effects but not for a few days. Let it all be. You might feel dizzy, confused, somewhat unsettled. Take time to go within, breathe, relax, center. You have all the resources you need to see things for what they are, but that takes time and quietude. So, again, take a few moments today and just be WHO you are. Things can make a little more seen from that vantage point.

A photo of a plasmic event in the yard here in New Mexico 8/21/14:

Birth COntrol Pill SIde Effects

Posted on August 20, 2014 by marcia

That Naughty Little Pill. Birth Control Side Effects

Posted by Kelly Brogan MD

It was early in my actualization as a feminist-minded, righteous post-adolescent that I began to think of birth control as a woman’s right (who was anyone to tell me that I couldn’t assault my hormones with synthetic imposters). It would be years before I would learn about the nuanced considerations of tacit permissiveness toward reckless unprotected sex, the wholesale delegation of contraception to the female counterpart, and the fundamental divorce of a woman from the very feedback systems that fire up her reproductive age vitality.

These concerns would begin to color my perception of this gift from Pharma, well before I began to learn about functional biochemical concerns surrounding the metabolism of synthetic hormones. With over 100 million women using this form of hormonal suppression worldwide, I have to wonder how many of them have any exposure to information about the Pill’s subtle but important perturbations to the system, not to mention the consensus risks of thromboembolism, hypertension, cerebrovascular events, gallstones, and cancer.

As notorious as our hormones are for wreaking havoc, they are what pop us into high relief – they excite us, move us, drive us and enliven us. The highly non-linear relationships between sex hormones, thyroid hormone, and adrenal hormones is like the magic of 3-D glasses: if you cover one lens, things just don’t look as exciting.

When patients come to me with complaints of low libido, low or flat mood, weight gain, hair loss, and cloudy thinking, one of my first questions is ,“Are you on the Pill?” When they come complaining about premenstrual irritability, insomnia, tearfulness, bloating, and breast tenderness, requesting that I sanction beginning a course of oral contraceptives and perhaps an antidepressant, the one-size-fits-all-cure-all of psychiatrists and gynecologists nationwide, my first comment is “There’s a better way.”

The signs of hormonal imbalance are often quickly dismissed as a problem too complex to rectify from its source. In my practice, I first look at diagnostics to better personalize dietary recommendations, targeted nutritional interventions, and herbal options to promote the body’s own drive toward harmony. If it’s not enough to celebrate their right to an optimally functioning hormonal system, and they also want to preserve their right not to have a fertilized egg, then I recommend a non-hormonal IUD, nifty gadgets like the Pearly, or the good ol’ fashioned condom.

Why is it that I think rendering a woman a 2-dimensional version of her hormonal self is such a big deal? Simply because, if she’s in my office, she is someone who has struggled with mood and anxiety, and the last thing she should be doing is stacking the cards against her recovery with synthetic hormones and the pharmacologic burden they bring. Since the 1960s, there has been controversy around the potential mood effects of oral contraceptives, but over 50 years of their use has not settled the question.

There is acknowledgement; however, that depression is the most common reason for discontinuation of use. I don’t need pilot studies that demonstrate women using the combined oral contraceptive pill were significantly more depressed than a matched group who were not, to persuade me because I see it first hand, most notably, in those who begin contraception (hormonal IUD, progestin-only, or combined) postpartum.

The data, overall, is compromised by inconsistent assessments of mood pathology across the cycle and between groups, and often by study design, but suggests that there is likely a subset of women for whom oral contraceptives represent a major risk factor for depression and/or related mood disturbance.

Who might these women be? From 13 prospective trials, it appears that they have a personal or family psychiatric history (though doesn’t that include the entire population at this point?), one that has been exacerbated by pregnancy/postpartum, and premenstrual periods, and young age. More specifically, women with premenstrual mood symptoms prior to use experience more adverse effects with lower progestin dosages or triphasic OCs, unlike women without this history who experience more psychiatric side effects with higher progestin preparations.

Could these side effects be just coincidence? Could they represent “confounding by indication” or the fact that many women who opt to suppress their cycle might already be prone to depression? It’s possible, but so are some of these important mechanistic insights:

Synthetic hormones like those in combined oral contraceptives increase thyroid and sex hormone binding globulin, effectively decreasing the available testosterone and thyroid hormone in circulation (which can render you of nun-like libido, and functionally hypothyroid or depressed, constipated, overweight, cloudy, with dry skin and hair, to boot!). A randomized, open-label, 9 week trial of 3 forms of hormonal contraception found that they all increased SHBG, as well as insulin resistance, and markers of inflammation such as c-reactive protein. Another study suggests that increases in SHBG may persist long after discontinuation of the Pill contributing to sexual dysfunction/low libido. Incidentally, xenoestrogens such as PCBs, BPA, and pthalates, as well as poor excretion of estrogen as occurs with gut dysbiosis, can also contribute to elevated SHBG and lead to undesirable states of “estrogen dominance”.
Oral contraceptives promote oxidative stress. Stress is often defined as the inability to cope with demands, and oxidative stress is a destructive force in the body perpetuated by reactive oxygen species that outnumber available antioxidant enzymes and factors. One measure of oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation, was found to be higher in those taking OCs, and improved (not quite to baseline controls) when they were treated with vitamins E and C, known antioxidants. Thus OCs may decrease the activity of two major defense systems in the body.
Oral contraceptives deplete vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants as measured by activity of Coenzyme Q10, vitamin E, and Total Antioxidant Activity. More specifically, OCPs have been acknowledged to deplete vitamin B6, a cofactor for the production of serotonin and GABA, as well as zinc, selenium, phosphorus, and magnesium demonstrated by this cross-sectional randomized study. Interestingly, elevated levels of copper (which can upregulate catecholamines, potentially causing feelings of overstimulation), iron (which can be a pro-oxidant), calcium, and cadmium were elevated compared to controls. Given that replacing and correcting these vitamins can be an imperfect effort, perhaps it’s best not to mess with them in the first place!

The review also discusses that the identification of patients vulnerable to these risks should include assessment of hormone sensitivity (menstrual cycle history, acne/hirsuitism, body mass index), comorbid diagnoses indicative of hormonal disarray (thyroid, diabetes, breast cancer), and baseline hormone assessment. I would add that an assessment of antioxidant and micronutrient status and markers of inflammation would also help to risk stratify.

This tends to be my major concern with regard to pharmaceutical interventions – there’s just no free lunch with medication treatment, and a risk/benefit analysis is very difficult to do if we don’t know what environmental and genetic risks an individual is bringing to the table. If there is a treatment option that presents minimal to no appreciable risks and some degree of evidence-based benefit, this, to me would represent the kinder, gentler road to health. These days, women’s lib looks a lot more like a healthy, happy menstrual cycle free from the grips of a prescription.

from: http://kellybroganmd.com/article/that-naughty-little-pill-birth-control/

Health Ranger Tests Countertop Water Filters

Posted on August 20, 2014 by marcia

Water filters tested for heavy metals removal: Zero Water, Pur, Brita, Mavea, Culligan, Seychelle and Waterman

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

(NaturalNews) As promised, we’ve now published the results from testing countertop water filters for their ability to remove toxic heavy metals and elements with radioactive isotopes. The brands we tested are:

* Zero Water
* Pur
* Brita
* Seychelle
* Culligan
* Mavea
* Waterman Portable Alkaline Water Purifier

(We also tested large “survival” gravity filters, with results to be published separately here on Natural News.)

Click here to see the full results at the Natural News Forensic Food Lab.

What we tested

Using ICP-MS instrumentation (see lab videos here), we tested these water filters for their ability to remove toxic heavy metals and elements which have radioactive isotopes.

Specifically, we tested for removal of:

* Aluminum
* Copper
* Arsenic
* Strontium
* Cadmium
* Cesium
* Mercury
* Lead
* Uranium

Why didn’t we test for fluoride removal? Fluoride is an extremely difficult element to work with due to its high reactivity (which is one reason why you probably shouldn’t drink it). It is also very difficult to remove from water. Testing fluoride concentrations via ICP-MS requires a complicated process run separately from other elements, using different matrix solutions and different plumbing for the instrument.

How we tested for heavy metals removal

To conduct the tests, we created a multi-element “spike” solution containing from 1300 ppb to 2300 ppb concentrations of each of the tested elements. This spike solution consisted almost entirely of laboratory-grade water (DI water), with a very small fraction (less than 0.1%) of laboratory acids found in element standards for the purpose of matrix stabilization.

For each water filter, we first ran several cycles of pure water through the filter in order to “flush” it and pre-load the filter cartridge with purified laboratory water. Once that was complete, we loaded each water filter pitcher with the spiked solution containing the multiple elements listed above.

After the water passed through the filter and was emptied into the holding section at the bottom of the pitcher, that filtered water was then sampled with a clean pipette, weighed on a calibrated laboratory scale and prepped for ICP-MS analysis.

Each sample was run via ICP-MS using a variety of quality control methods, including the use of calibration checks during the run and a four-point calibration curve for each element. Keep in mind that our ICP-MS instrumentation is far more accurate and sensitive than labs running ICP-OES. In fact, we have had to correct other labs using ICP-OES who discovered their calibrations were way off. The Natural News Forensic Food Lab is in the process of ISO 17025 certification.

Click here to see the actual results at Labs.NaturalNews.com

Click here to learn about Heavy Metals Defense, a supplement invented by the Health Ranger for capturing toxic heavy metals during digestion.

What we did NOT test for

We did not test for removal of PCBs, pesticides, chlorine or other organic compounds. Accordingly, we cannot reach any conclusions on how well these filters might work on removing those substances.

Testing for those complex molecules would require additional instrumentation which we do not yet have in our lab. (Remember, the Natural News Forensic Food Lab is entirely self-funded and receives no grant money from the government.)

Performance overview

What shocked me the most about the results of this testing is just how poorly most water filters performed on the removal of toxic heavy metals.

Most of the water filters we tested were entirely unsatisfactory in terms of heavy metals removal, in my informed view. Only two filters showed results which I would consider to be sufficient. Most filters also appeared to perform very poorly for removal of elements with radioactive isotopes (uranium, cesium, strontium).

Here’s an overview of what we found, element by element:

Aluminum removal

Four of the seven filters tested here actually increased aluminum concentrations in the filtered water.

This indicates they are using a filtration media which contains aluminum and allows some amount of aluminum to enter the water stream during filtration.

Only one filter removed 100% of all aluminum (Zero Water). See full results here.

Copper removal

Copper removal ranged from a low of 8.6% to a higher of 99.1%.

The average copper removal rate was 44.8%.

Copper is associated with mental insanity if consumed in very high quantities. Many homes still contain copper pipes, causing copper contamination of tap water.

Arsenic removal

Arsenic removal ranged from 12.1% to 99.3%, with an average removal of 42.6%.

Arsenic is a cancer-causing metal that’s linked to cancer and organ damage. It’s a common contaminant in well water. Click here to see full results on arsenic removal.

Cadmium removal

Cadmium is a toxic heavy metal which can cause kidney damage, heart damage and hardening of the arteries.

Cadmium removal ranged from 6.6% (Brita) to a high of 99.2% (Zero Water). The average removal was 33.1%.

Mercury removal

Mercury is an extremely toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage, kidney damage and reproductive damage.

Because mercury is a “sticky” element, it’s the easiest to remove of all. Removal rates ranged from 62.4% (Culligan) to a high of 99.7% (Waterman Mini).

Average mercury removal across all the filters was 88.5%.

Lead removal

Lead is a toxic heavy metal that causes brain damage and organ damage in the human body. Natural News has found significant quantities of lead in Organic Rice Protein superfoods imported from China.

Lead removal ranged from a low of 14.1% (Brita) to a high of 93.7% (Waterman Mini).

Average lead removal was 52.5%.

Strontium removal

In its non-radioactive form, strontium is a bone-building nutrient that’s often found with calcium.

Some water filters removed almost no strontium (Brita and Mavea), while the Zero Water Filter removed 100% of strontium.

One filter, the Waterman mini, increased strontium concentrations in the resulting water, indicating use of strontium in the filter media. This is not a bad thing. Strontium is actually a nutritive mineral, much like calcium.

Cesium removal

Cesium removal is important to consider due to the Fukushima disaster and the radioactive fallout of Cesium-137.

I am intimately familiar with cesium binding and removal technologies, as I invented the patent-pending Cesium Eliminator dietary supplement that binds with and captures radioactive isotopes of cesium.

In our testing of water filters, cesium removal varied from a low of 9.5% (Brita) to a high of 100% (Zero Water).

Average cesium removal was 35.3%.

Uranium removal

Removal of uranium is crucial for those planning on surviving a nuclear accident or nuclear war. Following nuclear events, uranium and cesium both fall out of the sky in radioactive forms, settling on bodies of water which are used for irrigation and public water supplies.

Removing radioactive uranium isotopes from drinking water is a crucial survival strategy following a nuclear incident. Only two filters we tested showed an ability to remove substantial amounts of uranium: Zero Water and the Waterman Portable Alkaline Water Purifier.

Click here to see actual results and uranium removal rates for all filters.

Magnesium mineralization

Two water filters we tested substantially increased the level of magnesium in the filtered water. The highest water mineralization rate was achieved by the Waterman mini filter, which is advertised as creating “alkaline water.”

The claim is true. While the magnesium concentration of the water we poured into the water filters was only 1.3 ppm, the Waterman Mini increased the magnesium concentration of the resulting water to nearly 250 ppm.

This is a substantial increase in magnesium concentration. The Seychelle filter also increased magnesium concentrations to nearly 250 ppm, indicating it has a “mineralization” component in its filter cartridge.

Recommendations and conclusions

Based on the laboratory analysis completed here at Natural News, I can only recommend two water filters in the category of countertop “pitcher” filters.

Natural News does not sell any of the water filters tested here, but they are available at retailers like Amazon.com. If you wish to help support our non-profit efforts to conduct more testing, please click this Amazon Smile link before shopping on Amazon.com, and Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchase price to the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center.

The two filters I recommend are:

1) Zero Water
2) Waterman Mini

Click here to see full laboratory testing results and data.

Heavy Metals Defense – a breakthrough in dietary self defense

In addition to researching the removal of toxic heavy metals in water filters, I’ve also pioneered extensive, original research into heavy metals contamination of foods, superfoods and dietary supplements.

From this research, I was able to invent a patent-pending dietary supplement formula called “Heavy Metals Defense” which binds and captures toxic heavy metals during digestion.

This formula is laboratory validated to reduce heavy metals by the following factors:

Aluminum reduction: 98.7%
Arsenic reduction: 77.6%
Cadmium reduction: 98.5%
Copper reduction: 95.8%
Lead reduction: 99.9%
Mercury reduction: 92.9%
Uranium reduction: 76.5%

Click here to view the full laboratory results data on Heavy Metals Defense and see how it works.

Essentially, Heavy Metals Defense works in a very similar way to the “ion exchange membrane” of the Zero Water filters. That’s why the metals capturing capacity is so high.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/046536_water_filters_heavy_metals_lab_results.html#ixzz3AyrPOktO

LIfe in Space — Plankton at ISS

Posted on August 20, 2014 by marcia

Plankton Found Living In Space On ISS Solar Panels Says Russians, Aug 2014, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: August 2014
Location of discovery: International Space Station
Country to make discovery: Russia
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2728979/Never-mind-alien-life-SEA-PLANKTON-space-Creatures-living-surface-ISS-officials-say.html

As I have said may times before, life exists in space. Animals like in our oceans can adapt though mutations and grow, live and eat in space. An example of living creatures in space is during the NASA tether incident which was filmed in infrared video (Feb 25, 1996). It caught many living creatures of mass proportions…one of which broke the many miles of tether in orbit. SCW

News states:

Traces of plankton and other microorganisms have been found living on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), according to Russian space officials. They claim the plankton were not carried there at launch – but are thought to have been blown there by air currents on Earth. Incredibly, the tiny organisms were found to be able to survive in the vacuum of space despite the freezing temperatures, lack of oxygen and cosmic radiation. (more at source).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuFBUS0kiSA

from: http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2014/08/plankton-found-living-in-space-on-iss.html