Saturday, November 05, 2005
Could this explain some UFO and ghost sightings?
I found a fascinating article here
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s818193.htm
called "Mystery of the Min Min lights explained," which, although it doesn't make reference to UFO's or any of the various glowing apparitions people have seen at night all over the world, might well explain some of them... unless something about the geography and weather conditions are totally unique in that one spot, which doesn't seem reasonable to assume.
Here's the basic idea:
"An Australian neuroscientist claims he can conjure up the mysterious Australian outback phenomenon of the Min Min lights, now that he has worked out what causes them.
Professor Jack Pettigrew, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane claims the lights are actually an inverted mirage of light sources which are, in some cases, hundreds of kilometres away over the horizon."
As soon as I read that, I wondered if the 2 UFO's I've personally seen (both of which were seen by many other people and made it into the news as unidentified, FYI, although of course that didn't constitute proof in my mind of aliens being involved, as I didn't see any) could have been this sort of mirage; they were just glowing discs of light with no details, and where we were living when my parents and I saw them was pretty similar to the outback in appearance and climate, which I'd think would increase the odds of that being the cause.
"Pettigrew studied the phenomenon in the Channel Country, Western Queensland, where he said it has been disturbing the locals for many years.
'I talked to old timers out there who had seen it and they were terrified by it,' he told ABC Science Online. 'It's a bit embarrassing for them because hardened outback men can be brought to tears by this thing. It really is quite alarming.'
'Just imagine you were sitting in your living room and a light appeared hovering in the middle of the room and as you moved your head to try and see the cause of the light, the light moved with you.'"
It IS scary to see something inexplicable like that, although it surprises me to hear that such macho men would admit that... especially since they've undoubtedly been told that they were imagining things to begin with. (One of the coolest aspects of science explaining facets of the unknown is that those who've maintained that people who claim to have experienced them are lying or crazy have to eat alot of crow.)
"When Pettigrew first encountered the Min Min he thought it was the planet Venus: 'But it didn't set. It went down to the horizon and then sat on the horizon for some time.'
On a later occasion while driving with colleagues, the three saw what they thought was the eyeshine of a cat about 50 metres in front of their vehicle. However when they stopped and turned out the headlights, it was still there, bobbing around as if it had a life of its own.
'We had a big argument - no one could agree what it was and how far away it was.'
Pettigrew and his two companions drove across the plains and used a car compass to work out how far away the light was, but had to drive five kilometres before there was any change in the direction of the compass.
'We calculated it was over 300 km away which was over the horizon,' Pettigrew said.
They later found out there had been a car driving straight towards them at the time they had seen the light."
That sure has a cause and effect feeling to it, doesn't it? If they thought it might be a cat, though, that sounds as if the lights were very close to the ground, whereas the one he thought at 1st was Venus was obviously much higher up... does that mean that it had to come from a light source higher up off the ground than a car's headlights, and if so what would that source be?
Here's the science behind the mirages:
"Pettigrew - who been reading about the Fata Morgana in which landforms that are beyond the horizon appear to float above it in an inverted form - thought this might help explain the Min Min lights.
Such mirages are caused by a temperature inversion, where cold dense air is trapped next to the ground under a layer of warmer air. A certain shape of temperature inversion will mean that light near the ground will be refracted in such a way that it travels in a curved path around the globe.
'It's like the way light travels in a fibre optic, no matter which way you bend the fibre,' he said. 'The light is being carried hundreds of kilometres by this layer of air that traps the light and stops it from being dispersed.'"
Isn't that WILD? You'd think they'd have checked for that shape of temperature inversion in areas with lots of UFO sightings... but, as always, the stigma of being involved with anything with the taint of the paranormal chases the scientists away.
"To test his theory that Min Min lights were actually a night-time phenomenon caused by the same factors that cause Fata Morgana, Pettigrew then set out to demonstrate he could produce one.
'I actually created a Min Min,' he said.
First he chose a night which had the right weather conditions: a cool evening following a hot day with little wind. He then drove 10 kilometres away over a slight rise into a watercourse, below the normal line of site of such a distant light. Six observers witnessed the light of the car float above the horizon, Pettigrew reports."
Did the observers see ONE light or TWO? That's a significant omission, since most people only see 1 UFO at a time; do a car's headlights blend together to make an oval patch of light for this phenomenon, even part of the time, or, if not, could motorcycle headlights be responsible for some sightings?
"In the light of the morning after the demonstration, Pettigrew said there was a spectacular Fata Morgana of a distant mountain range, which supported the idea that the Min Min had been due to the specific atmospheric conditions at the time.
'A mountain range that was normally not visible [because it was over the horizon] floated up off the horizon and gradually got dissected by fingers of blue sky, which finally sunk below the horizon as the sun warmed the air.'"
That seems beyond the realm of coincidence; I'm convinced. My research turned up some other theories about the Min Min lights, but none of the other theorists claim to have created the effect, so this one sure seems to be the winner; now, if only some group of skeptics would duplicate this experiment in America, or one of the science channels would pick up on this idea... anything to get the word out.
"The chances of seeing Min Min and Fata Morgana are higher in the Channel Country because it is flat with gentle hollows, where cold air is particularly likely to get trapped, and because there is usually a clear view of the horizon."
The next time I read about somewhere being a locale for UFO sightings, or other sorts of nighttime lights that are being attributed to ghosts and such, I'm going to try to find out what the geography of the area is; I know from experience that there ARE spirits, although I've never seen them in the form of lights, and readily admit the possibility of intelligences in the universe existing that'd be advanced enough to have spaceships, but... how can the "Min Min effect" NOT be responsible for at least some of this stuff?
Why would I be so eager to have this figured out when it'd quite possibly eliminate one of my "unknowns"? Because I'm on the path to "The Truth" rather than clutching to a worldview, and the more static I can clear from the screen the clearer my perception of that truth will be; if it turns out that every experience I've had with the unknown was caused by the sort of gov't mind-control ray that the crazies keep insisting exists, I'd much rather I know that than be left believing in things that don't exist... I don't need for there to be anything mystical in the universe, just that everything out there be knowable, and one day known.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s818193.htm
called "Mystery of the Min Min lights explained," which, although it doesn't make reference to UFO's or any of the various glowing apparitions people have seen at night all over the world, might well explain some of them... unless something about the geography and weather conditions are totally unique in that one spot, which doesn't seem reasonable to assume.
Here's the basic idea:
"An Australian neuroscientist claims he can conjure up the mysterious Australian outback phenomenon of the Min Min lights, now that he has worked out what causes them.
Professor Jack Pettigrew, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane claims the lights are actually an inverted mirage of light sources which are, in some cases, hundreds of kilometres away over the horizon."
As soon as I read that, I wondered if the 2 UFO's I've personally seen (both of which were seen by many other people and made it into the news as unidentified, FYI, although of course that didn't constitute proof in my mind of aliens being involved, as I didn't see any) could have been this sort of mirage; they were just glowing discs of light with no details, and where we were living when my parents and I saw them was pretty similar to the outback in appearance and climate, which I'd think would increase the odds of that being the cause.
"Pettigrew studied the phenomenon in the Channel Country, Western Queensland, where he said it has been disturbing the locals for many years.
'I talked to old timers out there who had seen it and they were terrified by it,' he told ABC Science Online. 'It's a bit embarrassing for them because hardened outback men can be brought to tears by this thing. It really is quite alarming.'
'Just imagine you were sitting in your living room and a light appeared hovering in the middle of the room and as you moved your head to try and see the cause of the light, the light moved with you.'"
It IS scary to see something inexplicable like that, although it surprises me to hear that such macho men would admit that... especially since they've undoubtedly been told that they were imagining things to begin with. (One of the coolest aspects of science explaining facets of the unknown is that those who've maintained that people who claim to have experienced them are lying or crazy have to eat alot of crow.)
"When Pettigrew first encountered the Min Min he thought it was the planet Venus: 'But it didn't set. It went down to the horizon and then sat on the horizon for some time.'
On a later occasion while driving with colleagues, the three saw what they thought was the eyeshine of a cat about 50 metres in front of their vehicle. However when they stopped and turned out the headlights, it was still there, bobbing around as if it had a life of its own.
'We had a big argument - no one could agree what it was and how far away it was.'
Pettigrew and his two companions drove across the plains and used a car compass to work out how far away the light was, but had to drive five kilometres before there was any change in the direction of the compass.
'We calculated it was over 300 km away which was over the horizon,' Pettigrew said.
They later found out there had been a car driving straight towards them at the time they had seen the light."
That sure has a cause and effect feeling to it, doesn't it? If they thought it might be a cat, though, that sounds as if the lights were very close to the ground, whereas the one he thought at 1st was Venus was obviously much higher up... does that mean that it had to come from a light source higher up off the ground than a car's headlights, and if so what would that source be?
Here's the science behind the mirages:
"Pettigrew - who been reading about the Fata Morgana in which landforms that are beyond the horizon appear to float above it in an inverted form - thought this might help explain the Min Min lights.
Such mirages are caused by a temperature inversion, where cold dense air is trapped next to the ground under a layer of warmer air. A certain shape of temperature inversion will mean that light near the ground will be refracted in such a way that it travels in a curved path around the globe.
'It's like the way light travels in a fibre optic, no matter which way you bend the fibre,' he said. 'The light is being carried hundreds of kilometres by this layer of air that traps the light and stops it from being dispersed.'"
Isn't that WILD? You'd think they'd have checked for that shape of temperature inversion in areas with lots of UFO sightings... but, as always, the stigma of being involved with anything with the taint of the paranormal chases the scientists away.
"To test his theory that Min Min lights were actually a night-time phenomenon caused by the same factors that cause Fata Morgana, Pettigrew then set out to demonstrate he could produce one.
'I actually created a Min Min,' he said.
First he chose a night which had the right weather conditions: a cool evening following a hot day with little wind. He then drove 10 kilometres away over a slight rise into a watercourse, below the normal line of site of such a distant light. Six observers witnessed the light of the car float above the horizon, Pettigrew reports."
Did the observers see ONE light or TWO? That's a significant omission, since most people only see 1 UFO at a time; do a car's headlights blend together to make an oval patch of light for this phenomenon, even part of the time, or, if not, could motorcycle headlights be responsible for some sightings?
"In the light of the morning after the demonstration, Pettigrew said there was a spectacular Fata Morgana of a distant mountain range, which supported the idea that the Min Min had been due to the specific atmospheric conditions at the time.
'A mountain range that was normally not visible [because it was over the horizon] floated up off the horizon and gradually got dissected by fingers of blue sky, which finally sunk below the horizon as the sun warmed the air.'"
That seems beyond the realm of coincidence; I'm convinced. My research turned up some other theories about the Min Min lights, but none of the other theorists claim to have created the effect, so this one sure seems to be the winner; now, if only some group of skeptics would duplicate this experiment in America, or one of the science channels would pick up on this idea... anything to get the word out.
"The chances of seeing Min Min and Fata Morgana are higher in the Channel Country because it is flat with gentle hollows, where cold air is particularly likely to get trapped, and because there is usually a clear view of the horizon."
The next time I read about somewhere being a locale for UFO sightings, or other sorts of nighttime lights that are being attributed to ghosts and such, I'm going to try to find out what the geography of the area is; I know from experience that there ARE spirits, although I've never seen them in the form of lights, and readily admit the possibility of intelligences in the universe existing that'd be advanced enough to have spaceships, but... how can the "Min Min effect" NOT be responsible for at least some of this stuff?
Why would I be so eager to have this figured out when it'd quite possibly eliminate one of my "unknowns"? Because I'm on the path to "The Truth" rather than clutching to a worldview, and the more static I can clear from the screen the clearer my perception of that truth will be; if it turns out that every experience I've had with the unknown was caused by the sort of gov't mind-control ray that the crazies keep insisting exists, I'd much rather I know that than be left believing in things that don't exist... I don't need for there to be anything mystical in the universe, just that everything out there be knowable, and one day known.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Is it Christmas already?
I didn't think it was... but then why did eBay put a red graphic header with ornaments and snowflakes on my "My eBay" page a couple of days ago? Since when does Christmas come the day after Halloween? What'll they do on Thanksgiving, switch to a turkey graphic for one day and then go back to the red one?
The advertising circulars that come with the newspaper have been showing Christmas stuff for the past few WEEKS, with said pages coming BEFORE the ones for the faster-arriving holiday, Halloween... and they have NO ads for anything for Thanksgiving, which also comes long before Christmas.
My 1st thought about all this is "Are they out of their minds?", but if people didn't WANT the stores to have Christmas stuff as early as August (Hallmark wins the honor for that one), they wouldn't carry it; they're interested in maximizing their income from every square foot of store space, and every advertising dollar, and if they weren't making a good profit they'd be selling other things instead.
So who are all these people who're buying Christmas doodads so far in advance? Aren't the sales that start at 6AM on the day after Thanksgiving bad enough, without stockpiling fa-la-la-la-la trappings before we've even carved our jack-o-lanterns? I can see how folks who want the limited-edition "collectible" Christmas ornaments (Hallmark again) would buy them as soon as they come out to be sure to get them, but why on Earth would anyone buy any of the other things now, when the good stuff and the full selection to pick from aren't out yet, and, more to the point, the sales haven't started yet? Where's the joy in paying full price for unspectacular merchandise months in advance? I could make some sense of it if the focus of the ad campaigns, and the shopping that resulted from them, was buying GIFTS well in advance, as that's a smart idea that allows you to get people what they'd like instead of what you could find on the half-empty shelves on December 24th, but what's the point in having the wrapping paper and cards so long before they'll be used?
Here's a thought: Instead of pursuing the form of Christmas now, why don't we get started on the substance of it instead, and turn our attention to giving to others; this year more than ever before there are many places that could really use all the time, $ and goods you can donate to help the less fortunate, and all your loved ones, and even liked ones, could use some cheer and caring and holiday spirit to buoy them up after the year we've had... we can still deck the halls next month.
The advertising circulars that come with the newspaper have been showing Christmas stuff for the past few WEEKS, with said pages coming BEFORE the ones for the faster-arriving holiday, Halloween... and they have NO ads for anything for Thanksgiving, which also comes long before Christmas.
My 1st thought about all this is "Are they out of their minds?", but if people didn't WANT the stores to have Christmas stuff as early as August (Hallmark wins the honor for that one), they wouldn't carry it; they're interested in maximizing their income from every square foot of store space, and every advertising dollar, and if they weren't making a good profit they'd be selling other things instead.
So who are all these people who're buying Christmas doodads so far in advance? Aren't the sales that start at 6AM on the day after Thanksgiving bad enough, without stockpiling fa-la-la-la-la trappings before we've even carved our jack-o-lanterns? I can see how folks who want the limited-edition "collectible" Christmas ornaments (Hallmark again) would buy them as soon as they come out to be sure to get them, but why on Earth would anyone buy any of the other things now, when the good stuff and the full selection to pick from aren't out yet, and, more to the point, the sales haven't started yet? Where's the joy in paying full price for unspectacular merchandise months in advance? I could make some sense of it if the focus of the ad campaigns, and the shopping that resulted from them, was buying GIFTS well in advance, as that's a smart idea that allows you to get people what they'd like instead of what you could find on the half-empty shelves on December 24th, but what's the point in having the wrapping paper and cards so long before they'll be used?
Here's a thought: Instead of pursuing the form of Christmas now, why don't we get started on the substance of it instead, and turn our attention to giving to others; this year more than ever before there are many places that could really use all the time, $ and goods you can donate to help the less fortunate, and all your loved ones, and even liked ones, could use some cheer and caring and holiday spirit to buoy them up after the year we've had... we can still deck the halls next month.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Stubborn stupidity
That was a phrase an ex-boyfriend of mine used to describe the behavior of people who refused to alter what was clearly stupid behavior no matter how consistently bad, or even self-destructive, the results were, or how many times that was pointed out to them; I adopted it because it's alliterative and a good shorthand term for the practice of making a conscious and deliberate choice to be a moron... and I've had to use it all too many times in dealings with my husband.
His specialty in this area is passionately dedicating his every waking moment to the most worthless time-wasting activities when there are important and time-sensitive things that need to be done, and I mean things that are important to HIM; his refusal to do things for anyone else when he's supposed to is a whole different essay. A typical example would be when he has an event of some sort that he's eagerly looking forward to, but when the day for it comes he's glued to his computer, surfing and posting on forums, refusing to get ready to go even after he's been repeatedly prompted; when he finally gets moving he suddenly decides he has to take a shower, which process includes him wandering around the house half-dressed for most of an hour before even entering the bathroom, and when he comes out he has to eat something, search the house for 20 different items to take with him, and of course spend some more time on the computer... so by the time he goes speeding down the street (as if he can make up all the lost time by driving faster) the event is well underway, and by the time he gets there it's often mostly over.
As you can imagine, events that I'm also involved with require me to hound him endlessly throughout the day/evening to try to get him ready on time... and yes, he has the nerve to complain about me trying to not let him screw things up by not allowing him to pull his usual stunts. Once, about 5 years ago, he announced that he was going to "prove" that he could get ready on time without any prompting from me, and that once he'd proven this I'd have no excuse to nag him about it ever again; responding that I'd be perfectly happy to not spend more time riding herd on him than on my own preparations, I insisted that we have a written definition of what "ready" meant... specifically, that he had to be outside of the house and able to get into the car and leave without going back inside for ANY reason, which crushed his plans of claiming to be "ready" and then doing 500 more things before he'd actually be willing to go, lol... that he agree to it and sign it, and that, if he failed, that'd be proof for all time that he could NOT get himself ready on time without being constantly monitored and prodded. Given those circumstances, how hard should he have worked to prove his point, and how STUPID would he have to be to mess up? It wasn't even close-he missed being ready on time by over an hour.
This is on my mind today because there's an insanely important project that he's been dragging his feet about dealing with for MONTHS that I'm trying to get him to finish; in a new twist, I've offered him the chance to do something he complains constantly about us never doing together, go to the movies (I loathe movie theaters, and don't have time to spend 2 hours sitting in the dark doing nothing, so I normally have no interest in going), if he gets the project done before a movie he wants badly to see, "Wallace & Gromit," vanishes from the nearby multiplexes. WEEKS have gone by, and, for all his many claims of "I'm really really really gonna work on it TONIGHT," and "There's no excuse for me to not finish it by the end of THIS weekend," he's STILL not done, and the movie's nearing the end of its run; he's spent many, MANY hours doing useless stuff during this time period, despite being periodically reminded of what he needs to do, and when asked why he's doing those things instead of the project, his standard reply is "I don't know."
If they ever make stubborn stupidity an Olympic event, he's a shoo-in for the gold medal.
His specialty in this area is passionately dedicating his every waking moment to the most worthless time-wasting activities when there are important and time-sensitive things that need to be done, and I mean things that are important to HIM; his refusal to do things for anyone else when he's supposed to is a whole different essay. A typical example would be when he has an event of some sort that he's eagerly looking forward to, but when the day for it comes he's glued to his computer, surfing and posting on forums, refusing to get ready to go even after he's been repeatedly prompted; when he finally gets moving he suddenly decides he has to take a shower, which process includes him wandering around the house half-dressed for most of an hour before even entering the bathroom, and when he comes out he has to eat something, search the house for 20 different items to take with him, and of course spend some more time on the computer... so by the time he goes speeding down the street (as if he can make up all the lost time by driving faster) the event is well underway, and by the time he gets there it's often mostly over.
As you can imagine, events that I'm also involved with require me to hound him endlessly throughout the day/evening to try to get him ready on time... and yes, he has the nerve to complain about me trying to not let him screw things up by not allowing him to pull his usual stunts. Once, about 5 years ago, he announced that he was going to "prove" that he could get ready on time without any prompting from me, and that once he'd proven this I'd have no excuse to nag him about it ever again; responding that I'd be perfectly happy to not spend more time riding herd on him than on my own preparations, I insisted that we have a written definition of what "ready" meant... specifically, that he had to be outside of the house and able to get into the car and leave without going back inside for ANY reason, which crushed his plans of claiming to be "ready" and then doing 500 more things before he'd actually be willing to go, lol... that he agree to it and sign it, and that, if he failed, that'd be proof for all time that he could NOT get himself ready on time without being constantly monitored and prodded. Given those circumstances, how hard should he have worked to prove his point, and how STUPID would he have to be to mess up? It wasn't even close-he missed being ready on time by over an hour.
This is on my mind today because there's an insanely important project that he's been dragging his feet about dealing with for MONTHS that I'm trying to get him to finish; in a new twist, I've offered him the chance to do something he complains constantly about us never doing together, go to the movies (I loathe movie theaters, and don't have time to spend 2 hours sitting in the dark doing nothing, so I normally have no interest in going), if he gets the project done before a movie he wants badly to see, "Wallace & Gromit," vanishes from the nearby multiplexes. WEEKS have gone by, and, for all his many claims of "I'm really really really gonna work on it TONIGHT," and "There's no excuse for me to not finish it by the end of THIS weekend," he's STILL not done, and the movie's nearing the end of its run; he's spent many, MANY hours doing useless stuff during this time period, despite being periodically reminded of what he needs to do, and when asked why he's doing those things instead of the project, his standard reply is "I don't know."
If they ever make stubborn stupidity an Olympic event, he's a shoo-in for the gold medal.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
The psychology of punishment... and a thing of beauty
I came across this page today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/608487.stm
called "Should smacking be illegal?", which asks
"Hitting a child with a cane, belt or any other implement is to be outlawed in England. However smacking is to remain an acceptable form of punishment.
Do you think the proposals go far enough to protect children from abuse, or do you think parents should be left with some freedom to discipline their offspring? Tell us what you think. "
which had all the expected responses posted from the 3 primary camps: "Oh no, you should NEVER hit a child, no matter how awful their behavior is and how indifferent they are to other punishments," "I got beaten as a kid, and it did me a world of good, so it should still be allowed," and "Well, a few slaps are ok, but beatings and the use of belts and such are NOT"... and the following fascinating reply:
"I went to school in England and got the cane or paddle numerous times, and never resented it. One time a teacher hit me with his hand and I disliked him from then on. Dogs feel the same attitude. If you hit a dog with your hand the dog, it will become alienated from you. If you use an object, such as a rolled up newspaper it will still be fond of you. So I would outlaw slapping by hand but approve of using a cane."
Alex May, USA
It can't have escaped Mr. May that a cane would cause MUCH more pain to a child, and carry a much higher probability of bruising, welts or other sorts of damage than a hand would, so clearly he thinks the "personal" nature of slapping with the hand is a VERY big deal... but is it? Is a creature as bright as a dog unable to grasp that the newspaper it's being whacked with is being wielded by the human; does it think the paper's just flying around, and the human's hand is just coincidentally attached to it? Is even the tiniest child unable to grasp this? I can't dismiss this concept too quickly, though, because I remember a woman telling me a few years ago about learning in a parenting class she was taking that you should always hit your child with an object, not your hands, because otherwise the child would come to be afraid of your hands... but that she was going to ignore that because she believed, correctly, that she couldn't judge as well how hard she was hitting her child if she used an object. I was puzzled then, and now, at where the teacher came up with this idea of a child fearing the hand that slaps them; I've certainly heard plenty of people say how afraid they were when the belt or switch was brought out to punish them, but no one has ever mentioned fear of their parents' hands, and I've seen plenty of children get a smack and then cling and clutch at the hands and arms of the parent, wanting to be held, and clearly not afraid of the palm that jut hit their backside, so... what gives? I'm honestly curious as to whether in some reasonable % of cases there's some sort of emotional problem caused by slapping a child that even so vicious an implement as the cane doesn't impart, and if so what the psychological pathway is that allows the mind to believe that the cane (or paddle or slipper) hitting them is somehow not connected to the adult wielding it; a search on this topic turned up nothing but more debating (and porn sites), rather than the psychological articles I'd hoped for, sadly.
Here's another interesting post:
"I am 75 years old. Until the age of 8, I was smacked on the bum for important transgressions, but never without a prior warning that what I had been doing was wrong, and if I persisted, I'd be smacked. When I was 8 years old, my father sat me down after I'd done something well deserving of a smack, and told me that I had reached the age of reason; instead of smacks, I'd get a lecture. Believe me, after the first lecture, I'd have voted for restoring the smacks."
Rob, USA
Is that memory colored by decades of frustration and aggravation due to lectures from authority figures (parents, teachers, bosses, wife), or did Rob REALLY, at the tender age of 8, think to himself that he'd rather be HIT than talked to? That seems vaguely crazy, but it made me think of something my grandmother said when I was about that age; "Your mother always talks and talks about every little thing-I don't know how you stand it. When I was a child, I'd rather have had a good, firm slap rather than all that talk, talk, talk-wouldn't you?" "NO!!" I'd gasped in reply, horrified... and she'd looked surprised that someone wouldn't think physical pain, and the risk of injury, was better than just being talked to. Now mind you, my grandmother and her siblings were beaten as children, so she wasn't just fantasizing this concept because she was tired of listening to my mother's yapping, she knew what the experience of being slapped felt like; maybe it's just an older generation thing?
The ability to feel pain, and the powerful negative reaction we have to it, is nature's way of making sure we avoid, and try hard to escape, any situation where we might get injured; what, then, could make people prefer pain to hearing the sound of a human voice, however protractedly? I suppose it'll remain a mystery-it's not like they can test this stuff on kids, after all.
And now for the thing of beauty: In the November 2005 issue of Vogue is an ad for a spectacular gown by Tadashi; it's made of one of my favorite fabrics, changeable taffeta, and the colors are a vibrant purple and GOLD, with the material ruched over the upper body and pleated on the sweeping skirt so that you get the full effect of the fabric being different colors depending on the angle it's viewed at. I went to their website, and they DO have a smallish pic of the dress, but they've made it a little tricky to get to; 1st, go here
http://tadashicollection.com/tadashi.html
click on where it says "Collection" at the bottom of the page, and then go to page 16. Sadly, they don't have the colors right, so you'll have to imagine that what looks like blue and grey is purple and gold, but still... isn't it GORGEOUS?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/608487.stm
called "Should smacking be illegal?", which asks
"Hitting a child with a cane, belt or any other implement is to be outlawed in England. However smacking is to remain an acceptable form of punishment.
Do you think the proposals go far enough to protect children from abuse, or do you think parents should be left with some freedom to discipline their offspring? Tell us what you think. "
which had all the expected responses posted from the 3 primary camps: "Oh no, you should NEVER hit a child, no matter how awful their behavior is and how indifferent they are to other punishments," "I got beaten as a kid, and it did me a world of good, so it should still be allowed," and "Well, a few slaps are ok, but beatings and the use of belts and such are NOT"... and the following fascinating reply:
"I went to school in England and got the cane or paddle numerous times, and never resented it. One time a teacher hit me with his hand and I disliked him from then on. Dogs feel the same attitude. If you hit a dog with your hand the dog, it will become alienated from you. If you use an object, such as a rolled up newspaper it will still be fond of you. So I would outlaw slapping by hand but approve of using a cane."
Alex May, USA
It can't have escaped Mr. May that a cane would cause MUCH more pain to a child, and carry a much higher probability of bruising, welts or other sorts of damage than a hand would, so clearly he thinks the "personal" nature of slapping with the hand is a VERY big deal... but is it? Is a creature as bright as a dog unable to grasp that the newspaper it's being whacked with is being wielded by the human; does it think the paper's just flying around, and the human's hand is just coincidentally attached to it? Is even the tiniest child unable to grasp this? I can't dismiss this concept too quickly, though, because I remember a woman telling me a few years ago about learning in a parenting class she was taking that you should always hit your child with an object, not your hands, because otherwise the child would come to be afraid of your hands... but that she was going to ignore that because she believed, correctly, that she couldn't judge as well how hard she was hitting her child if she used an object. I was puzzled then, and now, at where the teacher came up with this idea of a child fearing the hand that slaps them; I've certainly heard plenty of people say how afraid they were when the belt or switch was brought out to punish them, but no one has ever mentioned fear of their parents' hands, and I've seen plenty of children get a smack and then cling and clutch at the hands and arms of the parent, wanting to be held, and clearly not afraid of the palm that jut hit their backside, so... what gives? I'm honestly curious as to whether in some reasonable % of cases there's some sort of emotional problem caused by slapping a child that even so vicious an implement as the cane doesn't impart, and if so what the psychological pathway is that allows the mind to believe that the cane (or paddle or slipper) hitting them is somehow not connected to the adult wielding it; a search on this topic turned up nothing but more debating (and porn sites), rather than the psychological articles I'd hoped for, sadly.
Here's another interesting post:
"I am 75 years old. Until the age of 8, I was smacked on the bum for important transgressions, but never without a prior warning that what I had been doing was wrong, and if I persisted, I'd be smacked. When I was 8 years old, my father sat me down after I'd done something well deserving of a smack, and told me that I had reached the age of reason; instead of smacks, I'd get a lecture. Believe me, after the first lecture, I'd have voted for restoring the smacks."
Rob, USA
Is that memory colored by decades of frustration and aggravation due to lectures from authority figures (parents, teachers, bosses, wife), or did Rob REALLY, at the tender age of 8, think to himself that he'd rather be HIT than talked to? That seems vaguely crazy, but it made me think of something my grandmother said when I was about that age; "Your mother always talks and talks about every little thing-I don't know how you stand it. When I was a child, I'd rather have had a good, firm slap rather than all that talk, talk, talk-wouldn't you?" "NO!!" I'd gasped in reply, horrified... and she'd looked surprised that someone wouldn't think physical pain, and the risk of injury, was better than just being talked to. Now mind you, my grandmother and her siblings were beaten as children, so she wasn't just fantasizing this concept because she was tired of listening to my mother's yapping, she knew what the experience of being slapped felt like; maybe it's just an older generation thing?
The ability to feel pain, and the powerful negative reaction we have to it, is nature's way of making sure we avoid, and try hard to escape, any situation where we might get injured; what, then, could make people prefer pain to hearing the sound of a human voice, however protractedly? I suppose it'll remain a mystery-it's not like they can test this stuff on kids, after all.
And now for the thing of beauty: In the November 2005 issue of Vogue is an ad for a spectacular gown by Tadashi; it's made of one of my favorite fabrics, changeable taffeta, and the colors are a vibrant purple and GOLD, with the material ruched over the upper body and pleated on the sweeping skirt so that you get the full effect of the fabric being different colors depending on the angle it's viewed at. I went to their website, and they DO have a smallish pic of the dress, but they've made it a little tricky to get to; 1st, go here
http://tadashicollection.com/tadashi.html
click on where it says "Collection" at the bottom of the page, and then go to page 16. Sadly, they don't have the colors right, so you'll have to imagine that what looks like blue and grey is purple and gold, but still... isn't it GORGEOUS?
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
I blinked, and I missed it
The doorbell rang, and my husband passed out candy. A few minutes later, it happened again, and that was it-I hadn't even finished my dinner, and Halloween was over without me having seen a single kid in costume. We spent countless hours over the past few days trying to get our decorations found and set up, and there were kids at the door for less than 30 seconds.
Halloween just isn't my holiday, clearly.
It was pretty grim for me as a kid, too, since my "costume" was my tutu and a paper towel tube with a star glued to it, compared to the other kids whose mothers made or bought them a different cute costume every year, I'd get sent out as a 5th wheel with some neighbor's kids because my parents couldn't be bothered to pry their butts off of the couch and walk me around... and, at the end of it all, came my father's happiest moment of the year, when he threw out all my candy (and I do mean ALL of it). The one decent Halloween I had as a kid was when my mother somehow agreed to let me spend the night at another little girl's house that night, and I was taken trick or treating by her nice parents; when we got back to their house, I wasn't aware that my mother hadn't made her usual efforts to make sure that her will was enforced even in her absence, and thus had NOT told them to throw my candy away (I was still years away from understanding how psychos hide their sickness from people outside of the family), so I was braced to give up my haul, but the demand that I do so never came... and for a few golden hours, that night and the next morning, I was able to scarf candy like a normal kid (when I got home the rest of the candy was tossed out, of course, but I still felt as if I'd won a great victory over my parents).
A few years later, when I was too old to trick or treat anymore (it wasn't like it is today back then, with even teenagers begging for candy), I got stuck with having to give up my entire evening on Halloween passing out candy at our front door; I received no reward for this, of course, but by that point I'd realized that my mother was so certain of being obeyed that she didn't actually check to be sure I wasn't up to something, and thus that it wasn't difficult to smuggle a few pieces of the candy intended for other kids to my room, to be saved for times when I knew I'd be alone in the house long enough to really draw out the consumption of each piece to maximize my enjoyment of it.
What's most astonishing about my parents' warped handling of the candy issue is that when I got old enough to have $ in my pocket and make my own food choices (which wasn't until college, can you imagine?), I did NOT do what basic human nature would normally dictate that a person with that background do, which would be to pig out on candy at every opportunity... I almost never even ate other sweet things like cookies. I lost a sizable chunk of weight during the summer between high school and college, and have spent the rest of my life severely restricting my food intake; the "junk" part of what little I eat has always been mainly chips, because I crave salt rather than sugar. Heck, I don't even LIKE many kinds of candy, not even most chocolates; the candy we had for the kids who didn't come today has been sitting out in plain view for several days, and I haven't had a single piece... that's almost un-American, isn't it? Still, with my metabolism doomed to slow down a little bit each year for the rest of my life, it's a GOOD thing that I don't crave sweets; since I've been totally able to avoid the pudginess that my mother has never been able to overcome, I guess she who laughs last can laugh loudest about this issue.
Halloween just isn't my holiday, clearly.
It was pretty grim for me as a kid, too, since my "costume" was my tutu and a paper towel tube with a star glued to it, compared to the other kids whose mothers made or bought them a different cute costume every year, I'd get sent out as a 5th wheel with some neighbor's kids because my parents couldn't be bothered to pry their butts off of the couch and walk me around... and, at the end of it all, came my father's happiest moment of the year, when he threw out all my candy (and I do mean ALL of it). The one decent Halloween I had as a kid was when my mother somehow agreed to let me spend the night at another little girl's house that night, and I was taken trick or treating by her nice parents; when we got back to their house, I wasn't aware that my mother hadn't made her usual efforts to make sure that her will was enforced even in her absence, and thus had NOT told them to throw my candy away (I was still years away from understanding how psychos hide their sickness from people outside of the family), so I was braced to give up my haul, but the demand that I do so never came... and for a few golden hours, that night and the next morning, I was able to scarf candy like a normal kid (when I got home the rest of the candy was tossed out, of course, but I still felt as if I'd won a great victory over my parents).
A few years later, when I was too old to trick or treat anymore (it wasn't like it is today back then, with even teenagers begging for candy), I got stuck with having to give up my entire evening on Halloween passing out candy at our front door; I received no reward for this, of course, but by that point I'd realized that my mother was so certain of being obeyed that she didn't actually check to be sure I wasn't up to something, and thus that it wasn't difficult to smuggle a few pieces of the candy intended for other kids to my room, to be saved for times when I knew I'd be alone in the house long enough to really draw out the consumption of each piece to maximize my enjoyment of it.
What's most astonishing about my parents' warped handling of the candy issue is that when I got old enough to have $ in my pocket and make my own food choices (which wasn't until college, can you imagine?), I did NOT do what basic human nature would normally dictate that a person with that background do, which would be to pig out on candy at every opportunity... I almost never even ate other sweet things like cookies. I lost a sizable chunk of weight during the summer between high school and college, and have spent the rest of my life severely restricting my food intake; the "junk" part of what little I eat has always been mainly chips, because I crave salt rather than sugar. Heck, I don't even LIKE many kinds of candy, not even most chocolates; the candy we had for the kids who didn't come today has been sitting out in plain view for several days, and I haven't had a single piece... that's almost un-American, isn't it? Still, with my metabolism doomed to slow down a little bit each year for the rest of my life, it's a GOOD thing that I don't crave sweets; since I've been totally able to avoid the pudginess that my mother has never been able to overcome, I guess she who laughs last can laugh loudest about this issue.
Monday, October 31, 2005
A bad start to Halloween
Granted that it's usual to wait until you've gone to bed and gotten back up before seeing a new day as having started, it's technically Halloween already... and it's not looking good.
Our Halloween decorations, like much of our stuff, are packed in big boxes that are stacked nearly to the ceiling in various rooms of our home; because I don't have 1% of the strength needed to move them around, I'm stuck depending on my husband to shuffle things into and out of the boxes... and if you're a regular reader, you know from the outset that that's a disaster waiting to happen. When we get a new thing that needs to be stored, he consistently refuses to put it in whatever box it SHOULD be in, and instead sticks it in the nearest box, with the pompous claim "I'll remember where it is, it's right on top/in front and it'll be easy to find"... and then he promptly forgets where he put it. Soon, he dumps more things in the box, and then he moves the box somewhere else, and thus the item's nowhere to be found when it's needed, and requires HOURS of searching to locate... and sometimes is never found.
Currently, there are THREE things of mine (along with countless things of his) missing; 2 Halloween doodads, one of which has now been missing for 2 YEARS, and 1 other thing that was supposed to be part of my revised kitchen decor. After procrastinating as long as he could, my husband finally started searching for the Halloween stuff, with the hope that the final item would turn up too; he got through about 90% of the boxes, which took much of the weekend, and NONE of the 3 things were found. Worse, with the emergency of having the Halloween items in time to use them gone, he's going to refuse to look through that last 10% of the boxes; oh, he SAYS he'll look, but 1st he'll complain that his back still hurts from moving boxes, and then he'll insist on waiting until the weekend, then he'll make melodramatic claims of exhaustion and do nothing over the weekend, then he'll point to the lack of urgency as an excuse to move it to the NEXT weekend, by which time we'll have 20 time-sensitive emergencies piled up, and that'll take up the next couple of weekends... and in this manner MONTHS will slide by, and then he'll reveal that he can no longer remember which boxes he looked in, and that they've been restacked 10 times in the interim, so we can't even GUESS which boxes have been searched, and that'll be it for my stuff until MAYBE right before NEXT Halloween.
All this time wasted, all this sleep sacrificed, all this stress endured, all this frustration of knowing that if he'd just put in a little more effort, he'd have gone through ALL the boxes and HAD to have found the stuff, and nothing to show for it; he hasn't even put up that portion of the decorations that I can't do myself... this does NOT fill me with the Halloween spirit, sigh.
Just once, JUST ONCE, I'd like to reach a holiday with everything necessary unpacked, purchased, assembled, set up and otherwise totally ready, with nothing missing, forgotten or destroyed, and with my blood pressure not making me feel like my head's about to explode; is that too much to ask?
Our Halloween decorations, like much of our stuff, are packed in big boxes that are stacked nearly to the ceiling in various rooms of our home; because I don't have 1% of the strength needed to move them around, I'm stuck depending on my husband to shuffle things into and out of the boxes... and if you're a regular reader, you know from the outset that that's a disaster waiting to happen. When we get a new thing that needs to be stored, he consistently refuses to put it in whatever box it SHOULD be in, and instead sticks it in the nearest box, with the pompous claim "I'll remember where it is, it's right on top/in front and it'll be easy to find"... and then he promptly forgets where he put it. Soon, he dumps more things in the box, and then he moves the box somewhere else, and thus the item's nowhere to be found when it's needed, and requires HOURS of searching to locate... and sometimes is never found.
Currently, there are THREE things of mine (along with countless things of his) missing; 2 Halloween doodads, one of which has now been missing for 2 YEARS, and 1 other thing that was supposed to be part of my revised kitchen decor. After procrastinating as long as he could, my husband finally started searching for the Halloween stuff, with the hope that the final item would turn up too; he got through about 90% of the boxes, which took much of the weekend, and NONE of the 3 things were found. Worse, with the emergency of having the Halloween items in time to use them gone, he's going to refuse to look through that last 10% of the boxes; oh, he SAYS he'll look, but 1st he'll complain that his back still hurts from moving boxes, and then he'll insist on waiting until the weekend, then he'll make melodramatic claims of exhaustion and do nothing over the weekend, then he'll point to the lack of urgency as an excuse to move it to the NEXT weekend, by which time we'll have 20 time-sensitive emergencies piled up, and that'll take up the next couple of weekends... and in this manner MONTHS will slide by, and then he'll reveal that he can no longer remember which boxes he looked in, and that they've been restacked 10 times in the interim, so we can't even GUESS which boxes have been searched, and that'll be it for my stuff until MAYBE right before NEXT Halloween.
All this time wasted, all this sleep sacrificed, all this stress endured, all this frustration of knowing that if he'd just put in a little more effort, he'd have gone through ALL the boxes and HAD to have found the stuff, and nothing to show for it; he hasn't even put up that portion of the decorations that I can't do myself... this does NOT fill me with the Halloween spirit, sigh.
Just once, JUST ONCE, I'd like to reach a holiday with everything necessary unpacked, purchased, assembled, set up and otherwise totally ready, with nothing missing, forgotten or destroyed, and with my blood pressure not making me feel like my head's about to explode; is that too much to ask?
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Proof of the existence of auras?
In the November 2005 issue of Discover, I found this little blurb: "A Japanese scientist finds that human hands, foreheads, and the soles of the feet emit detectable light." Are you as stunned as I was? As always, I was very excited to learn something totally new, doubly so in this case because the folks who confidently proclaim that things like psychic phenomena can't possibly exist because science hasn't seen any evidence of them are going to have to accept that if they just now realized that light, which is hardly a new thing in the world of science, comes out of human skin, isn't it reasonable to think that there MIGHT be some energies that they DON'T know about going out of and/or into us that they haven't detected yet?
Eager to learn more about this subject, I did a search, and found this article:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050905/handlight.html
"Human hands glow, but fingernails release the most light, according to a recent study that found all parts of the hand emit detectable levels of light.
The findings support prior research that suggested most living things, including plants, release light. Since disease and illness appear to affect the strength and pattern of the glow, the discovery might lead to less-invasive ways of diagnosing patients."
When people say that they see auras around all living things, and, and this is the kicker, that when someone's sick their aura CHANGES, they mostly get written off as liars or kooks... but now scientists are telling us the exact same thing. While this doesn't constitute proof of auras per se, it sure pushes the boundaries of coincidence, doesn't it? (Don't expect to see them testing this any time soon, though, as scientists don't want to be associated with anything "mystical.")
"Mitsuo Hiramatsu, a scientist at the Central Research Laboratory at Hamamatsu Photonics in Japan, who led the research, told Discovery News that the hands are not the only parts of the body that shine light by releasing photons, or tiny, energized increments of light.
'Not only the hands, but also the forehead and bottoms of our feet emit photons,' Hiramatsu said, and added that in terms of hands 'the presence of photons means that our hands are producing light all of the time.'
The light is invisible to the naked eye, so Hiramatsu and his team used a powerful photon counter to 'see' it."
If it's not visible, how could people be seeing it in the form of auras? Presumably the same way some people see ghosts all around us all the time although most of us can't see anything; there's something in the brain that's extra-sensitive in some folks that allows them to perceive things hidden from the rest of us... and just because the perceptions are visual doesn't mean that the eyes are involved, any more than the eyes are involved when you close your eyes and visualize things.
"The detector found that fingernails release 60 photons, fingers release 40 and the palms are the dimmest of all, with 20 photons measured.
The findings are published in the current Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology.
Hiramatsu is not certain why fingernails light up more than the other parts of the hand, but he said, 'It may be because of the optical window property of fingernails,' meaning that the fingernail works somewhat like a prism to scatter light."
Did you look at your fingernails when you read that? *I* did, and my 1st thought was of how wizards and witches in stories are often described with light coming from their fingertips when they're exerting their powers; could people with greater ability to manipulate karma be emitting more light than normal, and that's where that idea came from?
"To find out what might be creating the light in the first place, he and colleague Kimitsugu Nakamura had test subjects hold plastic bottles full of hot or cold water before their hand photons were measured. The researchers also pumped nitrogen or oxygen gas into the dark box where the individuals placed their hands as they were being analyzed.
Warm temperatures increased the release of photons, as did the introduction of oxygen. Rubbing mineral oil over the hands also heightened light levels.
Based on those results, the scientists theorize the light 'is a kind of chemiluminescence,' a luminescence based on chemical reactions, such as those that make fireflies glow. The researchers believe 40 percent of the light results from the chemical reaction that constantly occurs as our hand skin reacts with oxygen."
Why do they have to "theorize"? How tough can this be to prove, once they knew what to look for? They're probably right... but wouldn't it be interesting if they weren't?
"Since mineral oil, which permeates into the skin, heightens the light, they also now think 60 percent of the glow may result from chemical reactions that take place inside the skin."
So now there's TWO sources of light, one ON the skin and one IN it? That violates Occam's Razor, which makes me think that perhaps it's all coming from the same sort of chemical reaction, since after all there's oxygen in our bodies as well as in the air. I'll be interested to see if they'll be able to test if parts of the body other than skin emit light; would they be allowed to use a version of their detection equipment during surgery, pressed tightly against various organs to check for light coming from them? Or how about blood-wouldn't you have thought they'd test that right away?
"Fritz-Albert Popp, a leading world expert on biologically related photons at The International Institute of Biophysics in Germany, agrees with the findings and was not surprised by them.
Popp told Discovery News, 'One may find clear correlations to kind and degree (type and severity) of diseases.'
Popp and his team believe the light from the forehead and the hands pulses out with the same basic rhythms, but that these pulses become irregular in unhealthy people. A study he conducted on a muscular sclerosis patient seemed to validate the theory."
Why would the light PULSE? If it was mirroring the heartbeat or breathing, you'd think they'd have noticed that and said so; what else could make these supposed chemical reactions wax and wane... does the SOUL perhaps pulse or otherwise cycle, or our karmic emissions, and that's what's causing it?
I found a little more info here:
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowAbstract&ArtikelNr=83935&ProduktNr=224242&Ausgabe=230810
(you may have to click on "Free Abstract" to see it).
"Generally, the fluctuation in photon counts over the body was lower in the morning than in the afternoon. The thorax-abdomen region emitted lowest and most constantly. The upper extremities and the head region emitted most and increasingly over the day. Spectral analysis of low, intermediate and high emission from the superior frontal part of the right leg, the forehead and the palms in the sensitivity range of the photomultiplier showed the major spontaneous emission at 470-570 nm. The central palm area of hand emission showed a larger contribution of the 420-470 nm range in the spectrum of spontaneous emission from the hand in autumn/winter."
Yeah, it's a little dense for a layperson, but the upshot of it seems to be that these light emissions are showing all sorts of variations... but WHY? What's their nature, what's their source, that time of the day and time of the year affect them, and that they vary so much from different parts of the body?
I'll be anxiously awaiting further developments about this topic.
Eager to learn more about this subject, I did a search, and found this article:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050905/handlight.html
"Human hands glow, but fingernails release the most light, according to a recent study that found all parts of the hand emit detectable levels of light.
The findings support prior research that suggested most living things, including plants, release light. Since disease and illness appear to affect the strength and pattern of the glow, the discovery might lead to less-invasive ways of diagnosing patients."
When people say that they see auras around all living things, and, and this is the kicker, that when someone's sick their aura CHANGES, they mostly get written off as liars or kooks... but now scientists are telling us the exact same thing. While this doesn't constitute proof of auras per se, it sure pushes the boundaries of coincidence, doesn't it? (Don't expect to see them testing this any time soon, though, as scientists don't want to be associated with anything "mystical.")
"Mitsuo Hiramatsu, a scientist at the Central Research Laboratory at Hamamatsu Photonics in Japan, who led the research, told Discovery News that the hands are not the only parts of the body that shine light by releasing photons, or tiny, energized increments of light.
'Not only the hands, but also the forehead and bottoms of our feet emit photons,' Hiramatsu said, and added that in terms of hands 'the presence of photons means that our hands are producing light all of the time.'
The light is invisible to the naked eye, so Hiramatsu and his team used a powerful photon counter to 'see' it."
If it's not visible, how could people be seeing it in the form of auras? Presumably the same way some people see ghosts all around us all the time although most of us can't see anything; there's something in the brain that's extra-sensitive in some folks that allows them to perceive things hidden from the rest of us... and just because the perceptions are visual doesn't mean that the eyes are involved, any more than the eyes are involved when you close your eyes and visualize things.
"The detector found that fingernails release 60 photons, fingers release 40 and the palms are the dimmest of all, with 20 photons measured.
The findings are published in the current Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology.
Hiramatsu is not certain why fingernails light up more than the other parts of the hand, but he said, 'It may be because of the optical window property of fingernails,' meaning that the fingernail works somewhat like a prism to scatter light."
Did you look at your fingernails when you read that? *I* did, and my 1st thought was of how wizards and witches in stories are often described with light coming from their fingertips when they're exerting their powers; could people with greater ability to manipulate karma be emitting more light than normal, and that's where that idea came from?
"To find out what might be creating the light in the first place, he and colleague Kimitsugu Nakamura had test subjects hold plastic bottles full of hot or cold water before their hand photons were measured. The researchers also pumped nitrogen or oxygen gas into the dark box where the individuals placed their hands as they were being analyzed.
Warm temperatures increased the release of photons, as did the introduction of oxygen. Rubbing mineral oil over the hands also heightened light levels.
Based on those results, the scientists theorize the light 'is a kind of chemiluminescence,' a luminescence based on chemical reactions, such as those that make fireflies glow. The researchers believe 40 percent of the light results from the chemical reaction that constantly occurs as our hand skin reacts with oxygen."
Why do they have to "theorize"? How tough can this be to prove, once they knew what to look for? They're probably right... but wouldn't it be interesting if they weren't?
"Since mineral oil, which permeates into the skin, heightens the light, they also now think 60 percent of the glow may result from chemical reactions that take place inside the skin."
So now there's TWO sources of light, one ON the skin and one IN it? That violates Occam's Razor, which makes me think that perhaps it's all coming from the same sort of chemical reaction, since after all there's oxygen in our bodies as well as in the air. I'll be interested to see if they'll be able to test if parts of the body other than skin emit light; would they be allowed to use a version of their detection equipment during surgery, pressed tightly against various organs to check for light coming from them? Or how about blood-wouldn't you have thought they'd test that right away?
"Fritz-Albert Popp, a leading world expert on biologically related photons at The International Institute of Biophysics in Germany, agrees with the findings and was not surprised by them.
Popp told Discovery News, 'One may find clear correlations to kind and degree (type and severity) of diseases.'
Popp and his team believe the light from the forehead and the hands pulses out with the same basic rhythms, but that these pulses become irregular in unhealthy people. A study he conducted on a muscular sclerosis patient seemed to validate the theory."
Why would the light PULSE? If it was mirroring the heartbeat or breathing, you'd think they'd have noticed that and said so; what else could make these supposed chemical reactions wax and wane... does the SOUL perhaps pulse or otherwise cycle, or our karmic emissions, and that's what's causing it?
I found a little more info here:
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowAbstract&ArtikelNr=83935&ProduktNr=224242&Ausgabe=230810
(you may have to click on "Free Abstract" to see it).
"Generally, the fluctuation in photon counts over the body was lower in the morning than in the afternoon. The thorax-abdomen region emitted lowest and most constantly. The upper extremities and the head region emitted most and increasingly over the day. Spectral analysis of low, intermediate and high emission from the superior frontal part of the right leg, the forehead and the palms in the sensitivity range of the photomultiplier showed the major spontaneous emission at 470-570 nm. The central palm area of hand emission showed a larger contribution of the 420-470 nm range in the spectrum of spontaneous emission from the hand in autumn/winter."
Yeah, it's a little dense for a layperson, but the upshot of it seems to be that these light emissions are showing all sorts of variations... but WHY? What's their nature, what's their source, that time of the day and time of the year affect them, and that they vary so much from different parts of the body?
I'll be anxiously awaiting further developments about this topic.
