dasa

http://www.ojas.by.ru/foto/krishna.htm

Astronomy Picture of the Day Each day a different image or photograph of the universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by an astronomer. 2002 December 14th http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Sound Waves May Replace Refrigerants By Katrina Woznicki UPI Science News 12-4-2 CANCUN, Mexico (UPI) -- Scientists said Wednesday they have developed technology that converts sound waves into refrigeration, which could lead to more environmentally efficient household and industrial products. The research team, led by Steven Garrett, professor of acoustics at Pennsylvania State University in College Park, said the thermoacoustics process could be a viable alternative to chemical refrigerants. Thermoacoustics can work both ways, by removing heat or adding heat. Scientists used tweaked loudspeakers to create high amplitude sound waves in the air. The amplitude levels were far higher than those at rock concerts, where the decibel level is around 120. At 165 decibels, the sound level is so intense the friction could set fire to hair as gas undergoes such huge acoustic undulations. The study was funded by ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's and Unilever, its parent company, and presented Wednesday at the First Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics in Cancun. The U.S. Department of Energy and the Navy have tested the potential of thermoacoustics. The thermoacoustic system managed to bring cooling temperatures down to 8 degrees below zero, well below the freezing point. "The thermoacoustic refrigeration machine we are developing for Ben & Jerry's (ice cream) would be just about what you would want for use in a home food refrigerator/freezer," Garrett said. Ganesh Raman, an associate professor in the mechanical, materials and aerospace engineering department at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and editor of the International Journal of Aeroacoustics, called the research "revolutionary." "The possibilities, I think, will go well beyond refrigeration," Raman told UPI. "This is an exciting development that only comes once in a while. And unlike other developments, this isn't an incremental step. This is a major leap." This new step in sound wave technology is equivalent to the strides made in harnessing light waves into laser technology, he explained.

" Any chance what we call galaxies are what has been translated as universes? " - thiest For the numerous "galaxies" that the astonomers see and photograph, to be the numerous "universes" mentioned in vedic liturature, would mean that we could see to the end of the universe we are in, thru the seven layers of covering around our universe, thru some portion of the causal ocean, and then thru the seven coverings of another universe. That is if i have understood it right. Since all that would be impossible, everything we see in the night sky or thru telescopes, must still be within our own universe (those formations that are called "galaxies" , as well).

I don't know if we can understand, from our present position. Here is a link that might help. http://www.sacreduniverse.com/overview.html "The Fifth Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam tells of innumerable universes. Each one is contained in a spherical shell surrounded by layers of elemental matter that mark the boundary between mundane space and the unlimited spiritual world." This statement, from that site, makes me think that all we can see is within one universe only.

Hubble space telescope image of a spiral galaxy.

The Crab Nebula in a recent composite photo that combines an optical image from Hubble telescope (seen in red) with an x-ray image from Chandra telescope (seen in blue).

http://www.hknet.org.nz/VWH.html

Archaeologists announce discovery of underwater man-made wall 2002/11/26 The China Post staff Underwater archaeologists yesterday announced the discovery of a man-made wall submerged under the waters of the Pescadores Islands that could be at least six and seven thousand years old. Steve Shieh, head of the planning committee for the Taiwan Underwater Archaeology Institute, said that divers found several places along the wall where holes were apparently filled up with pebbles, possibly in an attempt to block winds. The wall was located by a team of divers working in cooperation with the National Museum of History and the Department of Environmental Sciences at the National Sun Yat-sen University. In August, researchers scanning waters in the area with sonar discovered what appeared to be the remnants of four to five man-made walls running along the bottom of the sea. The proximity of the wall to a similar structure found in 1976 suggests that it may be further evidence of a pre-historical civilization. A three meter high underwater wall was discovered by amateur divers in waters off the nearby Hu-ching (Tiger Well) Island. British archaeologists examined the find and proclaimed that the wall was probably made between 7,000 and 12,000 years ago. Six years ago, evidence of a sunken city in the area was found when amateur divers found the remains of what appear to be city walls taking the shape of a cross on the ocean floor. Further examination suggested the ruins were made between seven and ten thousand years ago as well, although Japanese researchers put the walls construction at between 10,000 and 80,000 years ago. Taken together, the discoveries have helped to overturn the established notion that Taiwan's earliest aboriginal inhabitants made their way here from mainland China some 6,000 years ago. The underwater finds are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting the existence of civilizations older than anything previously imagined. On this theory, entire cities ended up underwater after sea levels rose towards the end of the last Ice Age, a date cited by Plato as being some 9,600 years ago. One of the most dramatic examples of evidence of civilizations found on ocean beds has been megalithic structures off the coast of Yonaguni-jima in Japan http://www.indiadivine.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=15253&page=3&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1 that have been interpreted in some circles as being built for sacrificial rites. According to Shieh, a similar structure has been located off of the shores of Taiwan's Pingtung County. Shieh said that he and his association have plans to explore that location as well as what appears to be a man-made path on the ocean floor off of Taitung County sometime next year.

http://www.indiadivine.com/ubbthreads/download.php?Number=32180

Leonids set to light up night sky By Richard Stenger CNN Monday, November 18, 2002 Posted: 4:11 PM EST (2111 GMT) (CNN) -- One of the most celebrated meteor showers will peak early Tuesday over Europe and North America, sending hundreds or thousands of fireballs streaking through the atmosphere each hour. Yet the Leonids will likely not match the spectacular 2001 display, one of the best in decades, if only because another celestial object hogs the nighttime spotlight. The annual meteor shower takes place every November when the Earth passes through a debris trail left by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which sheds material as it swings near the sun every 33 years. The tiny fragments, often no bigger than sand grains, heat up and vaporize as they bounce across the upper atmosphere at speeds of about 160,000 mph (260,000 km/h). The streaking particles produce intense flashes of light, sometimes brighter than Venus or the moon. The Leonids in particular are known for their exceptional brightness and endurance before disappearing. The meteor concentration varies sporadically from year to year, depending on whether the Earth smacks into sparse or thick bands of Leonid debris. This year, our planet plows through two comet swarms, providing peak periods some six hours apart overnight between November 18 and 19. The first cloud will spark a flurry of meteors that peaks over Europe around 4 a.m. GMT Tuesday (11 p.m. ET Monday), according to NASA. "We expect sky watchers in the countryside, away from city lights, to see between 500 and 1,000 Leonids per hour," said NASA's Bill Cooke, who helped calculate the meteor predictions. Later, our planet smacks into a second, thicker cloud about 5:30 a.m. ET. "Observers here in the United States could see as many as 2,000 per hour," Cooke said in a statement. During the 2001 light show, sky watchers in some places saw up to 10,000 meteors an hour. It was the heaviest concentration of Leonids since 1966, when there were an estimated 150,000 shooting stars an hour during peak times. Unlike the 2001 show, the 2002 edition will feature an unwelcome guest, the full moon, which is expected to wash out many fainter meteors. "Moonlight will reduce the number of Leonids seen," said Cooke. "We took this into account when we calculated our forecasts." There is a dark ray of hope for North Americans on the East Coast since the meteor peak occurs right before dawn for them. "That's good because at that time of night, the moon will be low in the Western sky. Try to find a dark observing site where the moon sets early behind tall buildings or surrounding hills," suggested Rob Suggs, another researcher at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Leonids, so named because they seem to originate from the constellation Leo, will drizzle over other parts of the world, but with no more than several dozen bright shooting stars per hour, NASA scientists estimate. If you can't watch during the peak hours, anytime between midnight and sunrise on November 19 should be a good time to watch. The nights before and after the apex can also offer enjoyable viewing. Astronomers suggest that meteor hunters bundle up, find a spot as far from artificial light pollution as possible, and look to the northwest or southwest away from the glare of the moon.

Best sun pictures ever show new solar features By Richard Stenger CNN Monday, November 18, 2002 Posted: 2:49 PM EST (1949 GMT) The new Swedish solar telescope in the Canary Islands documented previously unknown sunspot traits. (CNN) -- Resembling the work of Vincent Van Gogh, the most detailed images of the sun ever exhibit masterful golden swirls and bizarre dark clouds. The pictures were taken by a new Swedish telescope on the Canary Island of La Palma, one of the best places on Earth to view the sun. The Atlantic Ocean observatory documented previously unknown features: thin, dark cores within the bright filaments that encircle sunspots, which are intense magnetic storms that erupt like dark blemishes on the solar surface. "The new structures we see may be the building blocks of the solar magnetic activity," said Dan Kiselman, co-author of a report in the November 14 issue of the journal Nature. The Swedish physicist cautioned that researchers would require more time and data to understand the phenomena. "We are starting to hear from theorists who are beginning to think over this, but it is too early to say now in which way they will head," he said. Kiselman and colleagues plan more observations with the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences telescope, which boasts an ideal blend of geography and technology to watch the sun.

WORLD November 18, 2002 VNN7638 New Vedic Resources From Sri Nandanandana BY SRI NANDANANDANA USA, Nov 18 (VNN) — Dear Friends, Namaste and Hare Krishna. In our attempt to perceive the validity of Vedic culture in its spiritual and social ramifications and present that to others, we have added a new section to our website called "Recent Archeological Finds Confirming Vedic History." This is at: http://www.stephen-knapp.com. This is the beginning of an ongoing record of various archeological discoveries as well as research that validates the Vedic conception or description of history, and the way Vedic society and influence had spread to various parts of the world. New discoveries of this nature are always being found, but there seems to be a lack of an easily available listing to record them.

Chinese discoverers dwarfed European travels November 11 2002 at 06:54AM By Tony Weaver Think of the great voyages of discovery, and whose names spring to mind? Vasco da Gama, Bartholomew Diaz, Christopher Columbus? Ask the Speaker of Parliament, Frene Ginwala, and one name comes to her lips - the Chinese explorer, Zheng He. Zheng He - you may well ask - who was he? The answer is was one of the greatest explorers of all time. 'Zheng He's own ship was a technological marvel' Born in 1371 in Kunyang in Yunna Province, he was taken prisoner as a 10-year-old during the Ming Dynasty's conquest of the Mongols, castrated, and made a servant of the man who was to become Emperor Yong Le. Zheng grew up in a Muslim household. Both his father and grandfather had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and his early childhood was rich in stories of travel through wild and often barbarous lands. He soon became a trusted confidant of the emperor, and he was appointed "Admiral of the Western Seas". In 1405, at the age of 34, Zheng set out at the head of one of the greatest fleets ever to sail the seas, a fleet that rivalled the Spanish Armada and Japan's Pacific fleet in World War 2. Accounts differ as to how large the ships were, and how many ships there were in the fleet. Time Magazine's Tim McGirk writes that "more than 300 vessels with some 30 000 men sailed in the first imperial expedition of 1405". "Zheng He's own ship was a technological marvel: by some accounts it was more than 130m long, almost 60m wide and sailed under the power of nine masts. "Nobody had ever built a wooden sailing ship that big before, nor have they since." In another, unsigned, account, the fleet is described as having 62 "large" ships, each one nearly "600 feet" - 184 metres - long, and "hundreds of smaller vessels". There were "more than 200" ships in this fleet, this account records. One Chinese historian is recorded as saying: "The ships which sail the Southern Sea are like houses. When their sails are spread, they are like great clouds in the sky." Seven times, this massive fleet set sail. On board they would carry huge tubs of earth in which to grow fresh vegetables and fruit, which indicates that the Chinese knew that vitamin C could cure scurvy long before their European counterparts came to the same conclusion. On some of the voyages Buddhist monks and Muslim religious leaders sailed, as diplomats to Buddhist and Muslim lands. On board Zheng's flagship were over 1 000 men. Some of the ships in his fleet were designated as farm ships where livestock was carried to feed the sailors. Smaller boats shuttled back and forth between the fleet and the mainland, ferrying in supplies of fresh water. Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng travelled to modern day Vietnam, Java, Sumatra, India, Singapore, Malacca, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Somalia and Kenya. Accounts differ as to whether or not he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, as had his father and grandfather, but it is the Kenyan connection that fascinates Frene Ginwala. In October 1415, Zheng presented to the Ming emperor a giraffe which was a gift from the "King of Malinda", the ruler of the kingdom of what is present-day Malindi, south of the border with Somalia. The Chinese declared that the giraffe was a "Ch'I-lin", a special creature that appeared only to those with the "purest of spirit". There is speculation that Zheng confused the Somali word for giraffe, girin, with the Chinese Ch'I-lin. Ginwala said: "While in exile I lived in Tanzania for a while, and I read that they had found Persian and Chinese pottery at the port town of Bagamoyo. Then I read about a giraffe which had been presented to the Chinese emperor, and the giraffe, twiga in Swahili, is a very strong symbol for Tanzanians, so I started doing some research, and that led me to the story of Admiral Zheng He. "I used to fantasise, how did this giraffe get there? I had this mental image of a little giraffe being put in the ship, with a hole in the roof made bigger and bigger as the giraffe grew. "It was only later that I discovered the sheer scale of those ships, the massive size they were." Until then, she had always defined the ships of the early explorers in terms of the ships of the European explorers, which were tiny little cockleshells compared to the great behemoths of Zheng.

About 18,000 years ago, the entire Eurasian continent was filled with ice sheets for a period of over 1,000 years and some regions were not affected by such glaciation. One such unaffected region which could thus support vegetation and human settlements was Bha_rata. The story of the lost and revived River Sarasvati which nurtured a civilization with over 2,000 archaeological sites dated to ca. 3300 to 1400 BCE, has been told virtually completely by the scientists of Bha_rata. complete article at: http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?md=c&cid=196338 The life history of the River Sarasvati_ provides a framework to present the ancient history of civilization of Bha_rata, that is India. Out of nearly 2,600 archaeological sites of varying sizes, over 1500 archaeological settlements were found on the Sarasvati river basin. complete article at: http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?md=c&cid=210012

Science texts not always by the book By Marsha Walton CNN Sunday, November 3, 2002 Posted: 10:07 AM EST (1507 GMT) Science groups are working to improve the content in science texts. (CNN) -- Science and precision should be inseparable. But physics professor John Hubisz and others reviewing many U.S. textbooks say that's hardly the case. The information in the books is often unfocused, fragmented, and sometimes downright wrong. With a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Hubisz examined dozens of physical science texts for middle schools, and found scores of errors. Among them: •A map showing the equator running through Texas and Florida, when it's actually about 1,500 miles south. •A discussion of sound that says humans cannot hear below 400 hertz. But 47 notes on a piano are below 400 hertz. •Details of the Statue of Liberty, explaining her "bronze outer structure." The statue is copper. •A picture of the Statue of Liberty with the torch in her left hand. It's in her right hand. •Pictures of prisms bending light the wrong way. •Periodic tables not updated years after new elements have been added. •A compass with East and West reversed. •Chemistry formulas and physics laws that are so "simplified" they are completely wrong. But hard core errors are not the only problem. Studies by The American Association for the Advancement of Science say kids are lugging home heavy books full of disconnected facts. They say the books don't teach them well, and don't motivate them to take more than the bare minimum of science courses. Political correctness also complicates the situation, said Hubisz. His report for the Packard Foundation concluded: "Publishers now employ more people to censor books for content that might offend any organized lobbying group, than they do to check the correctness of facts." How do students stack up? For 10 years, William Schmidt, a statistics professor at Michigan State University, has looked at how U.S. students stack up against students in other countries in math and science. "In fourth-grade, we start out pretty well, near the top of the distribution among countries; by eighth-grade, we're around average, and by 12th-grade, we're at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa," he said. "You have what we call the mile-wide, inch-deep curriculum, where you have coverage of lots of topics but very shallow coverage of each one. And our studies suggest that that is related to how poorly our students do, especially at eighth and 12th-grade levels," he added. Both Schmidt and Hubisz agree that part of the problem is that textbooks include charts, graphs, sidebars, and other unnecessary nuggets that make them look more like hefty catalogs. And often, they say, it seems like artists and writers never communicate. One middle school text, for example, details the concept of refraction. Students are told to put a pencil in a glass to observe how the pencil appears bent in the water. But to illustrate this experiment is a photo of a girl with a glass that is opaque, and therefore impossible to observe the pencil inside. The problem has an explanation There's no disagreement with some criticisms, said Stephen Driesler, executive director of the Association of American Publishers School Division. But there are reasons for U.S. students not measuring up. "Other countries are only educating their best and brightest," said Driesler. The student who is going to work on a farm or in the family store is long gone by eighth grade in Japan or Singapore," he said. That's why educators in the United States believe the curriculum and texts have to serve a wide range of students -- from the brightest to the least gifted, Driesler said. The "mile-wide, inch-deep" curriculum also is the result of the differing demands of thousands of different school districts. With only a handful of major U.S. textbook publishers, Driesler says none could stay in business if they put out a different book for every state. That's how books grow to 700 or 800 pages, because Iowa might require a section on corn, Florida a description of aquifers, and Texas a chapter on oil and natural gas. "No publisher is ever rejected for too much content," said Driesler. But they will be rejected if they don't cover almost all of the curriculum requirements of a school district. Fixes proposed What's being done to fix this? Hubisz now has a site, www.science-house.org/middleschool/, where teachers can post errors. He said some publishers are working with him to fix the errors, but many are not. Schmidt is trying to streamline the information in the texts. "Instead of 16,000 local school districts each defining science, the country needs to come up with a common set of definitions of what is important for kids to learn," Schmidt said. "Then one needs to involve the science community so that these books are written without error, that they're written focused around important ideas."

City Under the Sea Wrath of Jealous Gods? – By B.K. Parthasarathy B.K. Parthasarathy writes about a spectacular underwater archaeological find by a joint British-Indian diving team that could rewrite history. Who would have thought a city that could be older than the Harappan civilization could be lying beneath water right off the coast of Mahabalipuram? Sometimes, it pays to listen to the stories of humble fishermen. Local fishermen in the coast of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu have for centuries believed in that a great flood consumed a city over 1,000 years ago in a single day when the gods grew jealous of its beauty. The myths of Mahabalipuram were written down by British traveler J. Goldingham, who visited the town in 1798, at which time it was known to sailors as the Seven Pagodas. Legend had it that six temples were submerged beneath the waves, with the seventh temple still standing on the seashore. Best-selling British author and television presenter Graham Hancock took these stories seriously. The hypothesis that there may be ruins underwater off the coast of Mahabalipuram has been around at least since the eighteenth century among scholarly circles. “I have long regarded Mahabalipuram, because of its flood myths and fishermen’s sightings as a very likely place in which discoveries of underwater structures could be made, and I proposed that a diving expedition should be undertaken there,” said Hancock. Hancock’s initiative resulted in the Dorset, England-based Scientific Exploration Society and India’s National Institute of Oceanography joining hands. In April this year, the team made a spectacular discovery The SES announced: “A joint expedition of 25 divers from the Scientific Exploration Society and India’s National Institute of Oceanography led by Monty Halls and accompanied by Graham Hancock, have discovered an extensive area with a series of structures that clearly show man made attributes, at a depth of 5-7 meters offshore of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu. “The scale of the submerged ruins, covering several square miles and at distances of up to a mile from shore, ranks this as a major marine-archaeological discovery as spectacular as the ruined cities submerged off Alexandria in Egypt.” India’s NIO said in a statement: “A team of underwater archaeologists from National Institute of Oceanography NIO have successfully `unearthed’ evidence of submerged structures off Mahabalipuram and established first-ever proof of the popular belief that the Shore temple of Mahabalipuram is the remnant of series of total seven of such temples built that have been submerged in succession. The discovery was made during a joint underwater exploration with the Scientific Exploration Society, U.K.” NIO said: Underwater investigations were carried out at 5 locations in the 5 – 8 m water depths, 500 to 700 m off Shore temple. Investigations at each location have shown presence of the construction of stone masonry, remains of walls, a big square rock cut remains, scattered square and rectangular stone blocks, big platform leading the steps to it amidst of the geological formations of the rocks that occur locally. Most of the structures are badly damaged and scattered in a vast area, having biological growth of barnacles, mussels and other organisms. The construction pattern and area, about 100m X 50m, appears to be same at each location. The actual area covered by ruins may extend well beyond the explored locations. The possible date of the ruins may be 1500-1200 years BP. Pallava dynasty, ruling the area during the period, has constructed many such rock cut and structural temples in Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram. The last claim is questioned by Hancock, who says a scientist has told him it could be 6,000 years old. Durham University geologist Glenn Milne told him in an e-mail: “I had a chat with some of my colleagues here in the dept. of geological sciences and it is probably reasonable to assume that there has been very little vertical tectonic motion in this region [i.e. the coastal region around Mahabalipuram] during the past five thousand years or so. Therefore, the dominant process driving sea-level change will have been due to the melting of the Late Pleistocene ice sheets. Looking at predictions from a computer model of this process suggests that the area where the structures exist would have been submerged around six thousand years ago. Of course, there is some uncertainty in the model predictions and so there is a flexibility of roughly plus or minus one thousand years is this date.” If that were true, it would be a spectacular development. Previous archaeological opinion recognizes no culture in India 6,000 years ago capable of building anything much. Hancock says this discovery proves scientists should be more open-minded. “I have argued for many years that the world’s flood myths deserve to be taken seriously, a view that most Western academics reject. “But here in Mahabalipuram, we have proved the myths right and the academics wrong.” Hancock believes far more research needs to be done on underwater relics. “Between 17,000 years ago and 7000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, terrible things happened to the world our ancestors lived in,” he says. “Great ice caps over northern Europe and north America melted down, huge floods ripped across the earth, sea-level rose by more than 100 meters, and about 25 million square kilometers of formerly habitable lands were swallowed up by the waves. “Marine archaeology has been possible as a scholarly discipline for about 50 years — since the introduction of scuba. In that time, according to Nick Flemming, the doyen of British marine archaeology, only 500 submerged sites have been found worldwide containing the remains of any form of man-made structure or of lithic artifacts. Of these sites only 100 — that’s 100 in the whole world! — are more than 3000 years old.” Hancock, who was understandably resentful about the NIO’s silence in his pivotal role in making the diving expedition happen — SES gave him full recognition — was himself quite generous about who deserved the greatest credit: “Of course the real discoverers of this amazing and very extensive submerged site are the local fishermen of Mahabalipuram. My role was simply to take what they had to say seriously and to take the town’s powerful and distinctive flood myths seriously. Since no diving had ever been done to investigate these neglected myths and sightings I decided that a proper expedition had to be mounted. To this end, about a year ago, I brought together my friends at the Scientific Exploration Society in Britain and the National Institute of Oceanography in India and we embarked on the long process that has finally culminated in the discovery of a major and hitherto completely unknown submerged archaeological site.” Interested readers can visit the following Web sites for more information. The Scientific Exploration Society’s Web site at www.india-atlantis.org And Graham Hancock’s Web site at www.grahamhancock.com – B.K. Parthasarathy is a freelance writer based in Chennai.

Dead But Awake: Is It Possible? by Daithi O Hanluin 02:00 AM Oct. 31, 2002 PT Two British scientists are seeking £165,000 ($256,000) to carry out a large-scale study to discover if clinically dead people really have out-of-body experiences. Dr. Sam Parnia, senior research fellow at the University of Southampton, and Dr. Peter Fenwick, a consultant neuropsychiatrist at Oxford University, are both highly respected researchers. Near-death experiences are the most common experience and include seeing a white light, while out-of-body experiences involve serenely observing one's dead body while medics work frantically to resuscitate it. The researchers have founded a charitable trust, Horizon Research, to promote studies in the field. Last year Parnia published a study indicating that 10 percent of clinically dead patients who were later resuscitated reported memories while they were lifeless. Evidence includes patients recognizing hospital staff they had never met but who helped during their resuscitation. Others have recalled conversations between doctors. According to known medical science, this should be impossible, given the absence of any brain activity. In the past, the theory has been scorned by the scientific community. Even those who want to believe the truth is out there have turned skeptical. Susan Blackmore was once the doyenne of British paranormal research. She has since retired, disillusioned, from the field. She concluded in her book about near-death experiences, Dying to Live, that there are scientific explanations for NDEs. While skepticism remains, scientists are coming to recognize that more research is necessary. In December 2001, a Dutch neurologist, Dr. Pim van Lommel of Hospital Rijnstate in Arnhem, Netherlands, led a team that published an article in The Lancet, the United Kingdom's highly respected journal of medicine. The study showed that 18 percent of clinically dead patients, later resuscitated, recalled near-death experiences years after the event. Another study, this one conducted in the United States by the father of near-death-experience studies, Kenneth Ring, used blind patients, resuscitated from cardiac arrest, who likewise described seeing their body while clinically dead, although slightly out of focus. The book Mindsight was inspired by this research. Fenwick and others are not positing life after death per se, merely consciousness after death. Nevertheless, the implications are enormous. If near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences don't come from the brain, where is consciousness based? "There are two ways to view the universe," says Fenwick. "Our current world model is that everything is matter." In other words, everything that we think of as "real" in scientific terms has a physical form that can be perceived by our senses. But this model, which philosophers call "radical materialism," cannot explain the existence of consciousness, which has no physical essence. So how do we account for consciousness? "There's a little (unexplained) miracle, and consciousness arises," Fenwick says of the current paradigm. However, another theory proposes that the basic building block of the universe is not matter but instead consciousness itself. This is described as the "transcendent" view, a perspective shared by many of the world's religions. "This second, transcendent, view of the universe makes it much easier to understand NDEs (near-death experiences)," says Fenwick, who believes that science will eventually replace the material view of the universe with the transcendent one. The advent of quantum mechanics, which posits that matter can simultaneously have both a physical form and a wave form is a step in that direction, he says. So are scientific studies of the power of prayer, which suggest that subjects benefit from the prayers of others even when they aren't aware that someone is praying for them. These studies have been interpreted by some researchers as an indication that consciousness behaves as a field, much like magnetism, which can be affected by other fields. If that's true, then it's possible one person's consciousness could affect another person's. Now Fenwick and Parnia hope to add new near-death-experience and out-of-body-experience research to these findings. If they can raise the cash, they intend to study 100 reanimated heart-attack victims who had near-death experiences. Research has shown that 30 of them can be expected to have out-of-body experiences. Fenwick and Parnia plan to place cards above the patients' heads that can only be seen from the ceiling, where those who experience out-of-body experiences claim to watch their resuscitation. So will this convince the skeptics? "No, nothing will, but that's OK," says Fenwick, laughing. "It's how science progresses. Any research that says you have to have a major rethink in your world model is always rejected. But it will prove that consciousness is not in the brain." Another thing the research proves is that there's life left yet in speculating about the afterlife.

Went to Heaven A woman went to the beach with her children. Her 4-yr-old son ran up to her, grabbed her hand, and led her to the shore where a dead sea gull lay in the sand. "Mommy, what happened to him?" the little boy asked. "He died and went to heaven," she replied. The child thought for a minute and said, "And God threw him back down?"

Sweet smelling body of dead priest unearthed in Romania A small church in Romania is drawing crowds of Christians after the perfectly preserved body of a 19th century priest was unearthed smelling of roses. Workers reconstructing a church in Husi in northern Romania found the body of a man dressed in the robes of an Orthodox priest. Some Christians believe the bodies of blessed people have a strong pleasant perfume around them because their corpses have been visited by Jesus. Romanian daily Adevarul reports records indicate the body may be that of the priest who consecrated the church in the early 1800s - priest Irimia Hagiu. Alexandru Vijianu, vicar of the Saint Niculai church, said: "The body looks as if it was buried yesterday and what is even more incredible is that it has a wonderful scent of roses. It is possible that we are standing before the discovery of a saint." Story filed: 11:06 Wednesday 9th October 2002

Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age US Premiere TLC October 10th: Flooded Kingdoms premiers in USA Posted on October 9 2002. Malta and Bimini Delve into a missing chapter in mankind's history with a visit to the ancient monoliths, prehistoric offshore temples and grooved channels of Malta. Investigate the submerged stone blocks of Bimini Road in the Bahamas, the mecca of Atlantis researchers. [Follow article link...] http://tlc.discovery.com/schedule/episode.jsp?episode=552173001

I don't think jokes get to Belgium very fast.

Scientists identify 'funniest gag in the world' The world's funniest joke has been unveiled by scientists at the end of the largest study of humour ever undertaken. For the past year people around the world have been invited to judge jokes on an internet site and contribute quips of their own. The LaughLab experiment - conducted by psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire - attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings. The joke which received the highest global ratings was submitted by 31-year-old psychiatrist Gurpal Gosall, from Manchester. It is: Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?" People logging onto the LaughLab website were invited to rate jokes using a "Giggleometer" which had a five-point scale ranging from "not very funny" to "very funny". One intriguing result was that Germans - not renowned for their sense of humour - found just about everything funny. They did not express a strong preference for any type of joke. People from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand most enjoyed jokes involving word plays. Top joke in Scotland: I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers. Top joke in USA: A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: "Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man." The man then replies: "Yeah, well we were married 35 years." Top joke in Belgium: Why do ducks have webbed feet? To stamp out fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks. Story filed: 11:09 Thursday 3rd October 2002

First Grade Proverbs A first grade teacher collected well-known proverbs. She gave each kid in the class the first half of the proverb, and asked them to fill in the rest. Here's what the kids came up with: Better to be safe than... punch a 5th grader. Strike while the... bug is close. It's always darkest before... daylight savings time. Never underestimate the power of... termites. You can lead a horse to water but... how? Don't bite the hand that... looks dirty. No news is... impossible. A miss is as good as a... Mr. You can't teach an old dog... math. If you lie down with dogs, you... will stink in the morning. Love all, trust... me. The pen is mightier than... the pigs. An idle mind is... the best way to relax. Where there is smoke, there's... pollution. Happy is the bride who... gets all the presents. A penny saved is... not much. Two is company, three's... The Musketeers. Children should be seen and not... spanked or grounded. You get out of something what you... see pictured on the box. When the blind lead the blind... get out of the way. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Cry and... you have to blow your nose.