manomayam

Micro and Macro similarities

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 00:56:00 +0000

Micro and Macro Cosmos are alike

In Indian scriptures, many references and descriptions aver that the Pindaanda and Brahmananda systems and structures or similar. Now we have scientific research confirming the same.

LOS ANGELES: Humans may be more aligned with the universe than thought, say scientists who found that the structures of our cell cytoplasm and neutron stars are similar, both resembling helical multistory parking garages.

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara in the US, explored the biophysics of shapes - helices that connect stacks of evenly spaced sheets - in a cellular organelle called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).

These structures named 'Terasaki ramps' were thought to be unique to soft matter (like the interior of cells) until researchers happened upon the work of nuclear physicist Charles Horowitz at Indiana University in the US.

Using computer simulations, Horowitz and his team had found the same shapes deep in the crust of neutron stars.

Nuclear physicists have an apt terminology for the entire class of shapes they see in their high-performance computer simulations of neutron stars: nuclear pasta.

These include tubes (spaghetti) and parallel sheets (lasagna) connected by helical shapes that resemble Terasaki ramps. However, differences can be found in the underlying physics.

Typically matter is characterised by its phase, which depends on thermodynamic variables: density (or volume), temperature and pressure - factors that differ greatly at the nuclear level and in an intracellular context.

"For neutron stars, the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force create what is fundamentally a quantum-mechanical problem," said Greg Huber, physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"In the interior of cells, the forces that hold together membranes are fundamentally entropic and have to do with the minimisation of the overall free energy of the system. At first glance, these could not be more different," said Huber.

Another difference is scale. In the nuclear case, the structures are based on nucleons such as protons and neutrons and those building blocks are measured using femtometres.

For intracellular membranes like the ER, the length scale is nanometres. The ratio between the two is a factor of a million, yet these two vastly different regimes make the same shapes.

"This means that there is some deep thing we do not understand about how to model the nuclear system," Huber said.

The similarity of the structures is riveting for theoretical and nuclear physicists alike.

"Seeing very similar shapes in such strikingly different systems suggests that the energy of a system may depend on its shape in a simple and universal way," said Horowitz.

The study was published in the journal Physical Review C.

Scientific Basis for Gangaa Snaanam

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 13:26:00 +0000

CHANDIGARH: Until now, it was believed that the healing properties of the Ganga were merely the stuff of myths.

However, scientists from the Institute of Microbial Technology (Imtech), Chandigarh, have for the first time come forward with scientific evidence that the water of Ganga does not putrefy easily. They have identified new viruses, or bacteriophages, which mimic bacteria in the river's sediment and eat them up.

The scientific world has always been baffled by the antiseptic properties of Ganga's waters. In 1896, British physician E Hanbury Hankin observed that cholera microbes died within three hours in its water, but thrived in distilled water.

This remained hypothetical until Imtech experts found the new viruses. Imtech is one of the laboratories of the CSIR. The study has revealed 20 to 25 types of bacteriophages in the river which can fight microorganisms that cause diseases like tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera and urinary tract infection, among others.

"We analysed the viral metagenomes in sediments of the Ganga and found different types of phages, said Dr Shanmugam Mayilraj, senior principal scientist at Imtech. He said the sediments house several novel viruses, which were never reported earlier. These are active against certain bacterial strains and can be used against multidrug resistant infections.

The team collected samples from the highly polluted Haridwar-Varanasi stretch. Also part of the project were National Environment Engineering Research Institute co-ordinating lab, National Botanical Research Institute, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research and Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants.

Chance of being nice - a real incident

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:44:00 +0000

Read this story. This might change the way you react to people around. Being nice is beneficial to our own life rather than some one else.

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Reproduction of the incident of Mike Harrison

When I was 24, I moved into an apartment and the couple next door were loud all the time. After putting up with it for a couple weeks, I decided to confront them and politely ask them to be quieter after noon, as I had a job that required me to work the midnight shift, so I always went to bed around noon and got up at 8pm.

I went next door and knocked on the door around 10am and a woman who was 68 answered and I introduced myself and she asked if I had come over to complain about the noise, which I said yes. She explained that both her and her husband are going deaf and they need to speak loudly to each other in order to hear each other. She invited me in and offered me a Pepsi and we just started talking about anything and everything about each other and after about 30 minutes or so we heard a loud bang in the kitchen area of the apartment so we went to investigate and her husband had collapsed and was not breathing. I told her to call 911(emergency services) and I started doing CPR on him, the ambulance and fire department arrived about 10 minutes later and by the time they arrived, I had revived him. I asked if she needed a ride to the hospital and she said no, so after the police took my info and statement for the reports, I went home and went to bed and woke up at 8pm and went next door and knocked and got no answer, so I assumed she was still at the hospital, and went to work that night.

When I came home from work there was a note on my apartment door from the lady asking me to come over. When I went over, she had cooked me breakfast and asked if I would drive her to the hospital as a police officer had driven her home around 3am because she was to distraught to drive, which I said no problem and asked when she wanted to go. When we got to the hospital I followed her to his room in ICU and he was in decent shape and he thanked me for doing CPR, which I replied that anyone would do it. He ended up staying in the hospital for a couple weeks and was released. I ended up becoming friends with this couple ( and never once complained again about the noises they made every day) until they moved to an assisted living facility in another state to be closer to their children, a year later.

Flash forward 10 years and I get a phone call from an attorney in Kentucky asking me to come down to his office. I of course was wondering what was going on, so I went down the next day and when I arrived at his office, the lawyer asked me if I knew a couple by their names and I said yes, they used to live next door to me. He told me that the woman had died a couple years ago and that the husband had died a month ago and he was hired by their children to find me, and that the man had changed his will to include me in it. He handed me an envelope that had a check for $25,000 (which I did not take, instead I told the lawyer to give it to the couples kids) and he asked if I would like to meet their children and grandchildren, because they wanted to thank me personally for saving the husbands life a decade ago and the couple had talked so highly about me saving his life, and also never once complaining about the noises they made and always asking if they needed anything whenever I went to the store or running around, and asking if they would like to go out to eat or see a movie(even if it wasn’t a movie I really wanted to see, I still went to whatever movie the wife wanted to see). I met the family and the two children (who are basically my age) introduced me to their kids as their adopted brother and to this day, we are all still friends and see each other constantly, as they moved to my area shortly after as their parents had a house that they had been renting out when I met them, and it went to the kids, so the son moved into the house with his family and his sister moved up here a few years later. In fact, the oldest daughter of the son is getting married this weekend, and my family and I are going to it.

To this day, I still have no regrets about not taking the money offered. The friendships I have gotten from the couples children is more than enough to make me happy

Written Jul 28

Constant sitters - Tip to avoid heart trouble

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 04:21:00 +0000

If your job needs to sit for long hours either at table or on flight, make it a habit to move your toes to keep the blood circulation in order to avert heart problem.

New York: Fidgeting while sitting for an extended period of time at a computer or during a long flight can protect the arteries in your legs and potentially help prevent arterial disease, a new study has claimed.

Research has shown that sitting for an extended period of time reduces blood flow to the legs, which may contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease. "Many of us sit for hours at a time, whether it is binge watching our favourite TV show or working at a computer," said Jaumme Padilla from University of Missouri in the US.

"We wanted to know whether a small amount of leg fidgeting could prevent a decline in leg vascular function caused by prolonged sitting," said Padilla. While researchers expected fidgeting to increase blood flow to the lower limbs, they actually found that this would be sufficient to prevent a decline in arterial function.
Researchers compared the leg vascular function of 11 healthy young men and women before and after three hours of sitting.

While sitting, participants were asked to fidget one leg intermittently, tapping one foot for one minute and then resting it for four minutes, while the other leg remained still throughout. On average, the participants moved their feet 250 times per minute. Researchers then measured the blood flow of the popliteal - an artery in the lower leg - and found that the fidgeting leg had a significant increase in blood flow, as expected, while the stationary leg experienced a reduction in blood flow.

Previous research has shown that increased blood flow and its associated shear stress - the friction of the flowing blood on the artery wall - is an important stimulus for vascular health. However, fidgeting's protective role had not
been established. While only one leg was exposed to fidgeting during the experiment, in a real-world scenario researchers recommend tapping both legs to maximise the beneficial effects.

However, researchers caution that fidgeting is not a substitute for walking and exercise, which produce more overall cardiovascular benefits. "You should attempt to break up sitting time as much as possible by standing or walking. But if you are stuck in a situation in which walking just is not an option, fidgeting
can be a good alternative. Any movement is better than no movement," said Padilla.

The findings were published in the American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

How Brain Perceives the World and analyses the Sight

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 23:49:00 +0000

Scientists gain new insight into how brain perceives the world

London, Oct 2, 2015 (PTI)

Neuroscientists have gained new insight into how the brain perceives the world by using high resolution high field MRI to study activity in different layers of the visual cortex in great detail.
The visual cortex is the part of the brain that processes sight by receiving feedforward input from the eyes.

But feedback is also required from parts of the brain that conceptualise and contextualise in order for us to fully comprehend what we are seeing.

Scientists have so far been impeded by the integration of both signals within the six different layers of the cortex.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow have come up with a solution by taking advantage of the fact that input from the retina is mapped out in the visual cortex, the University said in a release.

Much like light entering the lens of a camera hits a specific portion of a sensor to form a pixel, so too light entering the eye has a corresponding portion in the visual cortex, which when applied to magnetic resonance images, is called a voxel.

In order to study the feedback signal, the researchers showed subjects a picture – for example a car – part of which was obscured by a white square.

This enabled them to identify and isolate the area of the brain that responded only to the occluded portion of the scene, and thus quieten the feed-forward signal.

But even in the absence of sensory input, the visual cortex communicates with other brain areas.

By measuring the activity in this part, the researchers were able to see where feedback and feed-forward activity took place across the six different layers of the cortex as the brain tried to complete the picture by inferring what the whole scene looked like.
The ability to measure layer specific signals in humans was made possible by 7 Tesla MRI techniques pioneered at the University of Minnesota's Center for Magnetic Resonance Research.

Professor Essa Yacoub and colleagues have developed techniques that allow visualisation of human brain activity at sub-millimeter spatial resolutions and with high degrees of accuracy.

Such a capability was previously only possible with invasive studies in animals.
The result, published in the journal Current Biology, reveals the layered cortical organisation of external versus internal processing streams during perception, with activity during normal visual stimulation peaking in mid-layers and contextual information peaking in superficial layers.

Professor Lars Muckli, of the Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology, said: "Understanding the brain's feedback system is important if we are to develop more powerful computers and artificial intelligence systems, but it might also help us to better understand mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and autism.

Successful Life - Inherent Controls

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 31 May 2015 14:47:00 +0000

Successful in Life - Inherent Controls

Once a small boy asked his father about an illustration for a success in life.
His father took him to the river front. En route to the river, they purchased a kite and long string. The colourful kite was flown. Soon the length of the string was insufficient as the kite flew long and high.

Then the boy, asked - Papa - if we cut off the string or leave the string, the kite could fly higher? Why don't we do this?

Father agreed to this proposal and let him leave the string. The kite flew little higher and the descent started gradually. Within no time, the kite drifted away and fell at an obscure place.

Then the father went on to narrate:
Success in life is similar to this kite. It is tethered by a long string called
1) Family, Friends and Affection
2) Values
3) Morality and Ethics
4) Personal Intergrity and Honesty (to name a few).

Many a time, it seems that we could reach higher planes, if we are not restrained by this string. However, the drift will not last long. And the life would be at Jeopardy.

Hence, it is better to be tethered by the string of values rather than drift away without accountability, for temporary inducement or adhoc benefits which could ruin the future.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 May 2015 00:28:00 +0000

Vegetarian diet may help lower your BP

Tokyo, Feb 25, 2014 (PTI):

Vegetarians rejoice! Eating a vegetarian diet may lower your blood pressure (BP), a long-term research has claimed.

Factors such as diet, body weight, physical activity and alcohol intake play a role in the risk of developing hypertension, researchers said.

Dietary modifications have been shown to be effective for preventing and managing hypertension, according to research author Yoko Yokoyama, of the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan, and colleagues.

The authors analysed seven clinical trials and 32 studies published from 1900 to 2013 in which participants ate a vegetarian diet.

Net differences in BP associated with eating a vegetarian diet were measured, researchers said.

In the trials, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a reduction in the average systolic (peak artery pressure) and diastolic (minimum artery pressure) BP compared with eating an omnivorous (plant and animal) diet.

In the 32 studies, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with lower average systolic and diastolic BP, compared with omnivorous diets.

"Further studies are required to clarify which types of vegetarian diets are most strongly associated with lower BP. Research into the implementation of such diets, either as public health initiatives aiming at prevention of hypertension or in clinical settings, would also be of great potential value," researchers said.

The research was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine..

Sindhoor - Originally it is Bixa Orellana Dye

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 May 2015 00:20:00 +0000

Sindhoora

Traditional Dye of Red Shade

We, in Indian culture, have come across the word Sindhura at many places.

Sindhura is a beautiful shade of red, which is the popular context. In North India, it is mostly used by women to apply on the top of the forehead.

(At times, Kunkuma (Vermillion) is also referred as Sindhoor in North India. However, it is made by mixing Picking Lime to the Turmeric Powder.)

While procuring large quantity of Sindhura, for a temple inauguration, we got the complete picture of Sindhura trade and Manufacturing process currently followed in the market.

It is made from lead, which Pb₃O_4,

Lead Tetroxide is its chemical name. It is basically used by the Paint and Glass industry. Due to cheaper ingredients and commercial mass usage, this procedure is followed. In long term and regular usage/ higher quantity this can be carcenogenic. This is also called Miniun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II,IV)_oxide

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However, earlier days - the flower and seeds of Sindur tree were used. Even now, it is an art. Kindly refer to these two documents in the end of this article.

This is called Bixa Orellana (Tree). The natural dye is harmless. Every Hanuman Temple should be using this herbal powder instead of the harmful chemical.

Indigenous usage in many parts of the continent, including Nepal, is reflective of our customs. Check the photo from Brazil.

http://tasteofnepal.blogspot.in/2013/06/sindur-tree-of-nepal-sindure.html?m=1

https://www.academia.edu/4918901/Formulation_and_Evaluation_of_Herbal_Sindoor_Using_Different_Natural_Herbal_Ingredients

Hence, follow safe practices whether at home or temples. We should not save at the cost of health. Spread awareness.

Musical Training in Younger days, Helps a lot

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 10:50:00 +0000

Scientists have found some of the strongest evidence yet that musical training in younger years can prevent the decay in speech listening skills in later life.

According to a new Canadian study led by the Rotman Research Institute (RRI) at Baycrest Health Sciences, older adults who had musical training in their youth were 20% faster in identifying speech sounds than their non-musician peers on speech identification tests, a benefit that has already been observed in young people with musical training.

The findings are published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Among the different cognitive functions that can diminish with age is the ability to comprehend speech. Interestingly, this difficulty can persist in the absence of any measurable hearing loss. Previous research has confirmed that the brain's central auditory system which supports the ability to parse, sequence and identify acoustic features of speech -- weakens in later years.

Starting formal lessons on a musical instrument prior to age 14 and continuing intense training for up to a decade appears to enhance key areas in the brain that support speech recognition. The Rotman study found "robust" evidence that this brain benefit is maintained even in the older population.

"Musical activities are an engaging form of cognitive brain training and we are now seeing robust evidence of brain plasticity from musical training not just in younger brains, but in older brains too," said Gavin Bidelman, who led the study as a post-doctoral fellow at the RRI and is now an assistant professor at the University of Memphis.

"In our study we were able to predict how well older people classify or identify speech using EEG imaging. We saw a brain-behaviour response that was two to three times better in the older musicians compared to non-musicians peers. In other words, old musicians' brains provide a much more detailed, clean and accurate depiction of the speech signal, which is likely why they are much more sensitive and better at understanding speech."

Bidelman received a GRAMMY Foundation research grant to conduct the study and partnered with senior scientist Claude Alain, assistant director of Baycrest's RRI and a leading authority in the study of age-related differences in auditory cortical activity.

The latest findings add to mounting evidence that musical training not only gives young developing brains a cognitive boost, but those neural enhancements extend across the lifespan into old age when the brain needs it most to counteract cognitive decline. The findings also underscore the importance of music instruction in schools and in rehabilitative programs for older adults.

In this study, 20 healthy older adults (aged 55-75) -- 10 musicians and 10 non-musicians -- put on headphones in a controlled lab setting and were asked to identify random speech sounds. Some of the sounds were single vowel sounds such as an "ooo" or an "ahhh," others more ambiguous as a mix of two sounds that posed a greater challenge to their auditory processing abilities for categorizing the speech sound correctly.

During the testing cycles, researchers recorded the neural activity of each participant using electroencephalography (EEG). This brain imaging technique measures to a very precise degree the exact timing of the electrical activity which occurs in the brain in response to external stimuli. This is displayed as wave forms on a computer screen. Researchers use this technology to study how the brain makes sense of our complex acoustical environment and how aging impacts cognitive functions.

According to Bidelman and Alain's published paper, the older musicians' brain responses showed "more efficient and robust neurophysiological processing of speech at multiple tiers of auditory processing, paralleling enhancements reported in younger musicians."

Teixobactin - Next Generation Anti-Biotic

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 14:21:00 +0000

A newly discovered antibiotic eliminates pathogens without encountering any detectable resistance, a finding that may lead to treatments for chronic infections such as tuberculosis and MRSA.

For years, pathogens' resistance to antibiotics has put them one step ahead of researchers, which is causing a public health crisis, according to Northeastern University Distinguished Professor Kim Lewis.

The pioneering work to develop a novel method for growing uncultured bacteria led to the discovery of the antibiotic, called Teixobactin, and Lewis' lab played a key role in analysing and testing the compound for resistance from pathogens.

Lewis said this marks the first discovery of an antibiotic to which resistance by mutations of pathogens have not been identified.

The research team says teixobactin's discovery presents a promising new opportunity to treat chronic infections caused by staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, that are highly resistant to antibiotics, as well as tuberculosis, which involves a combination of therapies with negative side effects.

Lewis and biology professor Slava Epstein tapped into a new source of antibiotics beyond those created by synthetic means: uncultured bacteria, which make up 99 per cent of all species in external environments.

They developed a novel method for growing uncultured bacteria in their natural environment.
Their approach involves the iChip, a miniature device Epstein's team created that can isolate and help grow single cells in their natural environment and thereby provides researchers with much improved access to uncultured bacteria.

Researchers have since assembled about 50,000 strains of uncultured bacteria and discovered 25 new antibiotics, of which Teixobactin is the latest and most interesting, Lewis said.

The antibiotic was discovered during a routine screening for antimicrobial material using this method.

Lewis then tested the compound for resistance development and did not find mutant MRSA or Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to teixobactin, which was found to block several different targets in the cell wall synthesis pathway.

"Our impression is that nature produced a compound that evolved to be free of resistance. This challenges the dogma that we've operated under that bacteria will always develop resistance. Well, maybe not in this case," Lewis said.

However, indiscriminate usage of anti-biotics without monitoring/ awareness/ prescription could render this drug ineffective as well. So, use Anti- Biotics Judiciously.

Catalytic Converter produces power from Sea Water

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 10:43:00 +0000

Are we close to a solution to Global Warming Crisis??

If the US Navy makes available its new invention to the world, sea water could be used to generate electricity.

Washington:

The US Navy believes it has finally worked out the solution to a problem that has intrigued scientists for decades — how to take seawater and use it as fuel. The development of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel is being hailed as “a game-changer” because it would significantly shorten the supply chain, a weak link that makes any force easier to attack.

The US has a fleet of 15 military oil tankers and only aircraft carriers and some submarines are equipped with nuclear propulsion. All other vessels must frequently abandon their mission for a few hours to navigate in parallel with the tanker, a delicate operation, especially in bad weather.

The ultimate goal is to eventually get away from the dependence on oil altogether, which would also mean the navy is no longer hostage to potential shortages of oil or fluctuations in its cost. Vice Admiral Philip Cullom declared, “It’s a huge milestone for us.”

“We are in very challenging times where we really do have to think in pretty innovative ways to look at how we create energy, how we value energy and how we consume it,” he said. “We need to challenge the results of the assumptions that are the result of the last six decades of constant access to cheap, unlimited amounts of fuel,” added Admiral Cullom.

“Basically, we have treated energy like air, something that’s always there and that we don’t worry about too much. But the reality is that we do have to worry about it,” he said.

US experts have found out how to extract carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas from seawater.

Then, using a catalytic converter, they transformed them into a fuel by a gas-to-liquids process. They hope the fuel will not only be able to power ships, but also planes.

That means instead of relying on tankers, ships will be able to produce fuel at sea. The predicted cost of jet fuel using the technology is in the range of three to six dollars per gallon, say experts at the US Naval Research Laboratory, who have already flown a model airplane with fuel produced from seawater.

Younger Fathers have better Children??

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 01:03:00 +0000

Father's age plays a role in the shape, health and form of the children. The study from Austria, suggests that younger the father, better the child's looks.

Sperm less effectively copies DNA as men age, causes genetic mutation
'Errors' in men double every 16 years, women pass same genes at any age
Follows research men over 45 increase risk of autism by 3.5 times
Children with older fathers have chromosome construct linked to longevity

Does it Is it back to old days of early marriage and progeny?? Now a days, studies, career are centred on individual's efforts, responsibilities or aspirations; whereas older systems were dependent on the families and communities.

As the system envisaged completion of basic education till at least 16 at a distant places under different Guru, come back to home; continue education and learn responsibilities with practical training.

Marriage and bringing up next generation was the natural responsibility of the grand parents. It had two benefits.

Young parents can attend to their works/ education without being affected totally with the infants.
When the children grow up, their control would rest with grand parents, who are less aggressive and more affectionate, due to the factors of age and experience.
Thus the bond between 1st and 3rd Generation would strengthen and old age homes were never thought about, unless the couple is issueless.

Older fathers have uglier children, researchers have claimed after linking age to genetic mutations.

Revealed: Babies born to 20-year-old fathers are 10 per cent more attractive than those born to older men, scientists warn

The finding comes weeks after leading scientists reported children born to men over the age of 45 run a higher risk of having autism and psychiatric disorders.

With age, sperm-producing cells do not copy a man's DNA as effectively, leading to genetic mutations.

Martin Fielder, an anthropologist at Vienna University, told the Sunday Times: 'Every 16 years the mutation rate doubles. Other researchers found 25 mutations per sperm in a 20-year-old, but at age 40 it is 65 mutations. By 56, it doubles again.

'The effect is very visible - someone born to a father of 22 is already 5-10 per cent more attractive than those with a 40-year-old father and the difference grows with the age gap.'

In contrast, women pass on a maximum of 15 mutations to their baby, regardless of age, according to the study published in the journal Nature.

Surveying a group of six men and six women, researchers showed them each 4,018 photographs of 18-20-year-old men and 4,416 of women the same age, and asked tor ate their attractiveness.

Those with older fathers were consistently rated less attractive.

Children born to older fathers have a higher risk of autism and poor performance at school

However, the offspring of older men, though less attractive, are likely to outlive their peers with younger fathers, it is claimed.

Professor Lee Smith, a geneticist at Edinburgh University, told the Sunday Times other research found such children have longer telomeres - the caps on the end of chromosomes - which are associated with longer life.

Women pass on the same number of genetic mutations regardless of age, Nature journal revealed

But the mounting research connecting parents' age with autism is cause for concern, experts warn.

Autism is an umbrella term for a range of developmental disorders that have a lifelong effect on someone’s ability to interact socially and communicate.

In the UK, around one in 100 adults is thought to be affected by autism, mostly men, caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Researchers said men should be advised about the potential problems in order to help their personal decision-making when it came to having fathering children at older ages.

They warned that advancing paternal age posed a risk of ‘numerous public health and societal problems’.

Among well-known older dads are Simon Cowell, 54, whose son was born earlier this month, and comedian Frank Skinner whose first child was born in 2012 when he was 55.

Children born to fathers over 45, like Simon Cowell, who fathered at 54, or Frank Skinner, whose child was born when he was 55, run a higher risk of autism and are also likely to be less attractive than peers with young dadsok

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2587223/Whos-daddy-And-old-Children-born-older-fathers-likely-ugly-live-longer.html

Ghee is not harmful to heart

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 00:07:00 +0000

Did you ever hear from your Cardiologists and Trainers warning you, not to consume Ghee, Butter, Cheese or such saturated fats/ oils???

Of late, we have been hearing many appeals from traditional scholars to modern scientists debunking the theory. Now Cambridge University study negates the benefits of Olive Oil, Corn Oil apart from absolving the worsening effects of Saturated Fats. However, some scientists warn us from resumption of uncontrolled consumption.

It is generally agreed that Carbohydrates and Sugars are more dangerous.

Oils are good source for Vitamin E and Ghee is said to be one of the important source for Good Intellect and sharpness. घृतेन वर्धते बुद्धिः। तेजो वै घृतम्।

However, the method of consumption which results in maximum benefit is different from the way we consume today. If practised in the traditional way of consuming fresh ghee with hot food, it could yield desired results.
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Many of us have long been told that saturated fat, the type found in meat, butter and cheese, causes heart disease. But a large and exhaustive new analysis by a team of international scientists found no evidence that eating saturated fat increased heart attacks and other cardiac events.

The new findings are part of a growing body of research that has challenged the accepted wisdom that saturated fat is inherently bad for you and will continue the debate about what foods are best to eat.

For decades, health officials have urged the public to avoid saturated fat as much as possible, saying it should be replaced with the unsaturated fats in foods like nuts, fish, seeds and vegetable oils.

But the new research, published on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, did not find that people who ate higher levels of saturated fat had more heart disease than those who ate less. Nor did it find less disease in those eating higher amounts of unsaturated fat, including mono-unsaturated fat like olive oil or poly-unsaturated fat like corn oil.

“My take on this would be that it’s not saturated fat that we should worry about” in our diets, said Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury, the lead author of the new study and a cardiovascular epidemiologist in the department of public health and primary care at Cambridge University.

But Dr Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the findings should not be taken as “a green light” to eat more steak, butter and other foods rich in saturated fat. He said that looking at individual fats and other nutrient groups in isolation could be misleading, because when people cut down on fats they tend to eat more bread, cold cereal and other refined carbohydrates that can also be bad for cardiovascular health.

“The single macronutrient approach is outdated,” said Dr Hu, who was not involved in the study. “I think future dietary guidelines will put more and more emphasis on real food rather than giving an absolute upper limit or cut-off point for certain macronutrients.”

He said people should try to eat foods that are typical of the Mediterranean diet, like nuts, fish, avocado, high-fibre grains and olive oil. A large clinical trial last year, which was not included in the current analysis, found that a Mediterranean diet with more nuts and extra virgin olive oil reduced heart attacks and strokes when compared with a lower fat diet with more starches.

Alice H Lichtenstein, a nutritional biochemist at Tufts University, agreed that “it would be unfortunate if these results were interpreted to suggest that people can go back to eating butter and cheese with abandon,” citing evidence that replacing saturated fat with foods that are high in polyunsaturated fats — instead of simply eating more carbohydrates — reduces cardiovascular risk.

Dr Lichtenstein, who was not involved in the latest study, was the lead author of the American Heart Association’s dietary guidelines, which recommend that people restrict saturated fat to as little as 5 per cent of their daily calories, or roughly two tablespoons of butter or two ounces of Cheddar cheese for the typical person eating about 2,000 calories a day. The heart association states that restricting saturated fat and eating more unsaturated fat, beans and vegetables can protect against heart disease by lowering low-density lipoprotein or so-called bad cholesterol.

In the new research, Dr Chowdhury and his colleagues sought to evaluate the best evidence to date, drawing on nearly 80 studies involving more than a half million people. They looked not only at what people reportedly ate, but at more objective measures such as the composition of fatty acids in their bloodstreams and in their fat tissue. The scientists also reviewed evidence from 27 randomised controlled trials — the gold standard in scientific research — that assessed whether taking polyunsaturated fat supplements like fish oil promoted heart health.

The researchers did find a link between trans fats, the now widely maligned partially hydrogenated oils that had long been added to processed foods, and heart disease. But they found no evidence of dangers from saturated fat, or benefits from other kinds of fats.

The primary reason saturated fat has historically had a bad reputation is that it increases low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL, the kind that raises the risk for heart attacks. But the relationship between saturated fat and LDL is complex, said Dr. Chowdhury. In addition to raising LDL cholesterol, saturated fat also increases high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, the so-called good cholesterol. And the LDL that it raises is a subtype of big, fluffy particles that are generally benign. Doctors refer to a preponderance of these particles as LDL pattern A.

The smallest and densest form of LDL is more dangerous. These particles are easily oxidized and are more likely to set off inflammation and contribute to the buildup of artery-narrowing plaque. An LDL profile that consists mostly of these particles, known as pattern B, usually coincides with high triglycerides and low levels of HDL, both risk factors for heart attacks and stroke.

The smaller, more artery-clogging particles are increased not by saturated fat, but by sugary foods and an excess of carbohydrates, Dr Chowdhury said. “It’s the high carbohydrate or sugary diet that should be the focus of dietary guidelines,” he said. “If anything is driving your low-density lipoproteins in a more adverse way, it’s carbohydrates.”

While the new research showed no relationship overall between saturated or polyunsaturated fat intake and cardiac events, there are numerous unique fatty acids within these two groups, and there was some indication that they are not all equal.

When the researchers looked at fatty acids in the bloodstream, for example, they found that margaric acid, a saturated fat in milk and dairy products, was associated with lower cardiovascular risk. Two types of omega-3 fatty acids, the polyunsaturated fats found in fish, were also protective. But a number of the omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, commonly found in vegetable oils and processed foods, may pose risks, the findings suggested.

The researchers then looked at data from the randomised trials to see if taking supplements like fish oil produced any cardiovascular benefits. It did not.

But Dr Chowdhury said there might be a good explanation for this discrepancy. The supplement trials mostly involved people who had pre-existing heart disease or were at high risk of developing it, while the other studies involved generally healthy populations.

So it is possible that the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids lie in preventing heart disease, rather than treating or reversing it. At least two large clinical trials designed to see if this is the case are currently underway.

How did the Universe form?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 23:50:00 +0000

Bicep Experiment supports the theory that tiny atom became a massive universe by INFLATION.

Theoretical Physics, championed by our seers has their latest pioneers vying for a moment of excitement with the latest discovery about INFLATION.

This is what myriad sentences of Veda said. For an example - Asad Vaa Idamagra Aaseet. Tato Vai Sadajaayaata; Tadaikshata, Bahu Syaam Prajaayeya etc.

Bicep Experiment supports the theory that tiny atom became a massive universe by INFLATION.

BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) is an experiment designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to unprecedented precision, and in turn answer crucial questions about the beginnings of the Universe.)

BICEP Observatory on South Pole

Why was the telescope positioned on the South Pole??

The team examined spatial scales on the sky spanning about 1 to 5 degrees (two to 10 times the width of the full moon). To do this, they set up an experiment at the South Pole to take advantage of its cold, dry, stable air, which allows for crisp detection of faint cosmic light.

"The South Pole is the closest you can get to space and still be on the ground," said BICEP2 co-principal investigator John Kovac, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the deployment and science operation of the project. "It's one of the driest and clearest locations on Earth, perfect for observing the faint microwaves from the Big Bang."

Stanford physicist Andrei Linde's theory of how universe began

The detection of gravitational waves by the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole supports the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe came to be. The discovery, made in part by Assistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo, supports the theoretical work of Stanford's Andrei Linde.

Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today's best telescopes. All this, of course, has just been theory.

Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration today announced the first direct evidence supporting this theory, known as "cosmic inflation." Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

"This is really exciting. We have made the first direct image of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time across the primordial sky, and verified a theory about the creation of the whole universe," said Chao-Lin Kuo, an assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and a co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration.

These groundbreaking results came from observations by the BICEP2 telescope of the cosmic microwave background – a faint glow left over from the Big Bang. Tiny fluctuations in this afterglow provide clues to conditions in the early universe. For example, small differences in temperature across the sky show where parts of the universe were denser, eventually condensing into galaxies and galactic clusters.

Because the cosmic microwave background is a form of light, it exhibits all the properties of light, including polarization. On Earth, sunlight is scattered by the atmosphere and becomes polarized, which is why polarized sunglasses help reduce glare. In space, the cosmic microwave background was scattered by atoms and electrons and became polarized too.

"Our team hunted for a special type of polarization called 'B-modes,' which represents a twisting or 'curl' pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light," said BICEP2 co-leader Jamie Bock, a professor of physics at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Gravitational waves squeeze space as they travel, and this squeezing produces a distinct pattern in the cosmic microwave background. Gravitational waves have a "handedness," much like light waves, and can have left- and right-handed polarizations.

"The swirly B-mode pattern is a unique signature of gravitational waves because of their handedness," Kuo said.

The researchers were surprised to detect a B-mode polarization signal considerably stronger than many cosmologists expected. The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors. They also considered whether dust in our galaxy could produce the observed pattern, but the data suggest this is highly unlikely.

"This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar," said co-leader Clem Pryke, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Minnesota.

Physicist Alan Guth formally proposed inflationary theory in 1980, when he was a postdoctoral scholar at SLAC, as a modification of conventional Big Bang theory. Instead of the universe beginning as a rapidly expanding fireball, Guth theorized that the universe inflated extremely rapidly from a tiny piece of space and became exponentially larger in a fraction of a second. This idea immediately attracted lots of attention because it could provide a unique solution to many difficult problems of the standard Big Bang theory.

However, as Guth, who is now a professor of physics at MIT, immediately realized, certain predictions in his scenario contradicted observational data. In the early 1980s, Russian physicist Andrei Linde modified the model into a concept called "new inflation" and again to "eternal chaotic inflation," both of which generated predictions that closely matched actual observations of the sky.

Linde, now a professor of physics at Stanford, could not hide his excitement about the news. "These results are a smoking gun for inflation, because alternative theories do not predict such a signal," he said. "This is something I have been hoping to see for 30 years."

BICEP2's measurements of inflationary gravitational waves are an impressive combination of theoretical reasoning and cutting-edge technology. Stanford's contribution to the discovery extends beyond Kuo, who designed the polarization detectors. Kent Irwin, a professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC, also conducted pioneering work on superconducting sensors and readout systems used in the experiment. The research also involved several researchers, including Kuo, affiliated with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), which is supported by Stanford, SLAC and the Kavli Foundation.

BICEP2 is the second stage of a coordinated program, the BICEP and Keck Array experiments, which has a co-principal investigator structure. The four PIs are Jamie Bock (Caltech/JPL,) John Kovac (Harvard), Chao-Lin Kuo (Stanford/SLAC) and Clem Pryke (UMN). All have worked together on the present result, along with talented teams of students and scientists. Other major collaborating institutions for BICEP2 include the University of California, San Diego; University of British Columbia; National Institute of Standards and Technology; University of Toronto; Cardiff University; and Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique.

BICEP2 is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF also runs the South Pole Station where BICEP2 and the other telescopes used in this work are located. The Keck Foundation also contributed major funding for the construction of the team's telescopes. NASA, JPL and the Moore Foundation generously supported the development of the ultra-sensitive detector arrays that made these measurements possible.

Technical details and journal papers can be found on the BICEP2 release website:http://bicepkeck.org

Reaction of the Russian Theoretical Physicist Prof. Andrei Linde, who is the Founding father of the Gravitational Waves INFLATION Theory, when the news broke by Prof Kuo.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/03/18/the-most-heartwarming-moment-from-yesterdays-groundbreaking-physics-discovery/

Vitamins - History

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:39:00 +0000

Carl Zimmer, explains the history of Vitamins and their composition and necessity. Incidence of Scurvy Disease among sailors led to the discovery of Vitamin C.

What is the history behind vitamins? And how did we come to realise that these nutrients are vital for us? Carl Zimmer takes us through its story and reveals the intricacies involved.
In 1602, a Spanish fleet was sailing up the Pacific coast of Mexico when the crew became deathly ill. “The first symptom is pain in the whole body that makes it sensitive to touch,” wrote Antonio de la Ascensión, a priest on the expedition. “Purple spots begin to cover the body, especially from the waist down; then the gums become so swollen that the teeth cannot be brought together, and they can only drink, and finally they die all of a sudden, while talking.”

The crew was suffering from scurvy, a disease that was then both bitterly familiar and deeply mysterious. No one knew why it struck sailors or how to cure it. But on that 1602 voyage, Ascensión witnessed what he considered a miracle. While the crew was ashore burying the dead, one sick sailor picked up a cactus fruit to eat. He started to feel better, and his crewmates followed his example.

“They all began to eat them and bring them back on board so that, after another two weeks, they were all healed,” the priest wrote.

Over the next two centuries, it gradually became clear that scurvy was caused by a lack of fruits and vegetables on long-distance voyages. In the late 1700s, the British navy started supplying its ships with millions of gallons of lemon juice, eradicating scurvy. But it wasn’t until 1928 that Hungarian biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi discovered the ingredient that cured scurvy: Vitamin C.

Szent-Gyorgyi’s experiments were part of a wave of early-20th-century research that pulled back the curtain on vitamins. Scientists discovered that the human body required minuscule amounts of 13 organic molecules. A deficiency of any of the vitamins led to different diseases - a lack of vitamin A to blindness, vitamin B12 to severe anaemia, vitamin D to rickets.

Today, a huge amount of research goes into understanding vitamins, but most of it is focused on how much of them people need to stay healthy. This work does not address a basic question, though; How did we end up so dependent on these peculiar little molecules?

Recent research is providing new answers. It appears that vitamins were essential to life from its earliest stages some 4 billion years ago. Early life-forms could make their own vitamins, but some species - including ours later lost that ability. Species began to depend on each other for vitamins, creating a complex flow of molecules that scientists have named “vitamin traffic.”

A universal chemistry

Every vitamin is made by living cells – either our own, or in other species. Vitamin D is produced in our skin, for example, when sunlight strikes a precursor of cholesterol. A lemon tree makes vitamin C out of glucose. Making a vitamin is often an enormously baroque process. In some species, it takes 22 proteins to craft a vitamin B12 molecule.

While a protein may be made up of thousands of atoms, a vitamin may be made up of just a few dozen. And yet, despite their small size, vitamins expand our chemical versatility. A vitamin cooperates with proteins to help them carry out reactions they couldn’t manage on their own. Vitamin B1, for example, helps proteins pull carbon dioxide from molecules.

Vitamins carry out these chemical reactions not just in our own bodies but in all living things.

The ability we lost

Once the ability to make vitamins evolved, some species became especially good at making them. Plants, for example, evolved into vitamin C factories, packing their leaves and fruits with the molecule. At first, vitamin C probably defended plants against stress – a function it carries out in other species, including us. But over time, the vitamin took on new jobs in plants, like helping control the development of fruit.
Many vertebrates can make vitamin C, and use an identical set of genes to do so. “We should be able to make it, too, since we have all the genes,” said Rebecca Stevens of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research.

Unlike a frog or a kangaroo, however, we have crippling mutations in one of those genes, known as GULO. Unable to make the GULO protein, we cannot produce vitamin C.

“It’s not just us – it goes back a long time,” said Guy Drouin, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Ottawa. He and other researchers have found that apes and monkeys, our closest primate relatives, have disabled GULO genes, with many of the same mutations. Drouin has concluded that the common ancestor we share with those other primates lost the ability to make vitamin C around 60 million years ago.

It wasn’t just us

Now that scientists can scan genomes of thousands of species, they’re discovering many more cases in which vitamin genes have either decayed or disappeared altogether. Sergio Sanudo-Wilhelmy of the University of Southern California and his colleagues recently surveyed the genomes of 400 of the most abundant species of bacteria in the oceans. As they report in a paper to be published in the Annual Review of Marine Science, 24 percent of the bacteria lack genes to make B1, and 63 percent can’t make B12.

These recent studies are especially surprising because bacteria have long been considered self-sufficient when it comes to vitamins. Now scientists need to figure out why many species of bacteria in the ocean aren’t dead from a microbial version of scurvy.

Only recently have scientists made measurements of vitamins in the sea. They are finding some places that are abundant with them and others that are vitamin deserts. It is possible that the difference influences not just bacteria and algae, but the animals that feed on them.

Vitamins flow in complex routes, not just in the ocean, but on land. We humans can’t make our own supply of vitamin B12, for example, so we need to get it from food. One way is to eat meat like beef, which contains B12. It turns out that the cows and other animals that we consume don’t make B12 in their own cells. Instead, the bacteria in their guts manufacture it for them.

We are also home to thousands of species of bacteria, which synthesise vitamins as they eat our food. Does that mean we depend on our internal vitamin traffic? “It’s still theoretical,” said Douwe van Sinderen, a microbiologist at University College Cork in Ireland. “But evidence is building that bacteria can provide some vitamins that we need.”

If that’s so, we may need to think of our bodies as self-contained oceans of vitamin traffic – a continuation of the traffic that has occurred on Earth for 4 billion years.

Vegetarians have better chances of health

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:08:00 +0000

Our Sages have demonstrated long ago.

Kanda Moola Phala Bhakshanam (Eating Plant based food such as Roots, Fruits and Vegetables) leads to longevity of life.

Vegetarian diet may help lower your BP

Tokyo, Feb 25, 2014

Vegetarians rejoice! Eating a vegetarian diet may lower your blood pressure (BP), a long-term research has claimed.

Factors such as diet, body weight, physical activity and alcohol intake play a role in the risk of developing hypertension, researchers said.

The authors analysed seven clinical trials and 32 studies published from 1900 to 2013 in which participants ate a vegetarian diet.

Net differences in BP associated with eating a vegetarian diet were measured, researchers said.

In the 32 studies, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with lower average systolic and diastolic BP, compared with omnivorous diets.

The research was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Voice - its impact in attracting people

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 23:34:00 +0000

Why do we like the baritone voice?

Men with deeper voices and women with slightly higher voices were thought to sound more attractive, because they suggest a bigger or a smaller body.
"There is more complex mechanism at play," said Molly Babel from University of British Columbia. "The voice is an amazingly flexible tool that we use to construct our identity," he added.
Men with deeper voices and women with slightly higher voices were thought to sound more attractive, because they suggest a bigger or a smaller body.
"There is more complex mechanism at play," said Molly Babel from University of British Columbia. "The voice is an amazingly flexible tool that we use to construct our identity," he added.
"There is more complex mechanism at play," said Molly Babel from University of British Columbia. "The voice is an amazingly flexible tool that we use to construct our identity," he added.
A creaky voice, suggesting a person has a cold, is tired or smokes, was seen as unattractive.
But the new study, published by a linguistics expert in Canada, suggests there is a more complex mechanism at play.
The participants in the study preferred men who spoke with a shorter average word length and deeper voices.
The scientists found that what is attractive to people is how much they sound like a typical male or a typical female from their own community.
"We seem to like people who sound like we sound, we like people who fit within what we know," Babel added.
A creaky voice, suggesting a person has a cold, is tired or smokes, was seen as unattractive.
But the new study, published by a linguistics expert in Canada, suggests there is a more complex mechanism at play.
The participants in the study preferred men who spoke with a shorter average word length and deeper voices.
The scientists found that what is attractive to people is how much they sound like a typical male or a typical female from their own community.
"We seem to like people who sound like we sound, we like people who fit within what we know," Babel added.
But the new study, published by a linguistics expert in Canada, suggests there is a more complex mechanism at play.
The participants in the study preferred men who spoke with a shorter average word length and deeper voices.
The scientists found that what is attractive to people is how much they sound like a typical male or a typical female from their own community.
"We seem to like people who sound like we sound, we like people who fit within what we know," Babel added.
The participants in the study preferred men who spoke with a shorter average word length and deeper voices.
The scientists found that what is attractive to people is how much they sound like a typical male or a typical female from their own community.
"We seem to like people who sound like we sound, we like people who fit within what we know," Babel added.
The scientists found that what is attractive to people is how much they sound like a typical male or a typical female from their own community.
"We seem to like people who sound like we sound, we like people who fit within what we know," Babel added.
"We seem to like people who sound like we sound, we like people who fit within what we know," Babel added.
The attraction lies in the voice, not the face. People prefer those who have a similar accent and voices that sound like their own, say researchers.

The breathy tone, caused by younger and thinner vocal cords, implied youthfulness and health.

Skin Colour and Tanning

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:24:00 +0000

SKIN TAN

Have you ever wondered how your skin gets a nice tan after a week of frolicking in the sun-kissed beaches and how it fades in a month?
Indian biologists now claim to know the answer, which may lead to the development of a therapy against leprosy. Besides, it would strengthen the ongoing battle against skin cancer. “Our aim would be to research on a new therapy for leprosy, exploiting the pathway we found,” Rajesh S Gokhale, director of Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, which led the study, told Deccan Herald.

One of the indications of leprosy is white patches on the skin, which happens when cells producing skin pigment melanin stop functioning. This is where the Indian team wants to chip in. Human skin gets its characteristic colour from melanin, packed in small granules that serve as soldiers shielding the DNA from harmful rays of the sun.

It is required in the body because too much sun can cause sunburn and cancer.

Whenever our body is exposed to the sun, these granules increase in number, strengthening the protective shield. It results in skin tanning. The tan remains for 28 days after which the skin gets back its colour.

“Our study shows a protein named interferon-gamma is a crucial factor secreted by immune cells that maintains these checks and balances in human skin. It helps bring back pigmentation to a normal state,” said Gokhale. The research findings were published in the January 28 issue of “Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences”.

The IGIB team, along with researchers from National Institute of Immunology, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital here, besides National Chemical Laboratory, Pune found that the interferon pathway was involved in maintaining pigmentation balance in the skin.

Yoga Meditation Benefit Research

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:41:00 +0000

Though for different reasons (300 Billion Loss per annum due to Stress and Desease); scientists are showing conclusive proof over its efficacy.

London:

Scientists are getting close to proving what yogis have held to be true for centuries—yoga and meditation can ward off stress and disease.

John Denninger, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, is leading a five-year study on how the ancient practices affect genes and brain activity in the chronically stressed. His latest work follows a study he and others published earlier this year showing how so-called mind-body techniques can switch on and off some genes linked to stress and immune function.

While hundreds of studies have been conducted on the mental health benefits of yoga and meditation, they have tended to rely on blunt tools like participant questionnaires, as well as heart rate and blood pressure monitoring. Only recently have neuro-imaging and genomics technology used in Denninger’s latest studies allowed scientists to measure physiological changes in greater detail.

“There is a true biological effect,” said Denninger, director of research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of Harvard Medical School’s teaching hospitals. “The kinds of things that happen when you meditate do have effects throughout the body, not just in the brain.”

The government-funded study may persuade more doctors to try an alternative route for tackling the source of a myriad of modern ailments. Stress-induced conditions can include everything from hypertension and infertility to depression and even the aging process. They account for 60-90% of doctor’s visits in the US, according to the Benson-Henry Institute. The World Health Organization estimates stress costs US companies at least $300 billion a year through absenteeism, turn-over and low productivity.

Seinfeld, Murdoch

The science is advancing alongside a budding mindfulness movement, which includes meditation devotees such as Bill George, board member of Goldman Sachs Group and Exxon Mobil Corp., and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch recently revealed on Twitter that he is giving meditation a try.

As a psychiatrist specializing in depression, Denninger said he was attracted to mind-body medicine, pioneered in the late 1960s by Harvard professor Herbert Benson, as a possible way to prevent the onset of depression through stress reduction. While treatment with pharmaceuticals is still essential, he sees yoga and meditation as useful additions to his medical arsenal.

Exchange programme

It’s an interest that dates back to an exchange programme he attended in China the summer before entering Harvard as an undergraduate student. At Hangzhou University, he trained with a tai chi master every morning for three weeks.

“By the end of my time there, I had gotten through my thick teenage skull that there was something very important about the breath and about inhabiting the present moment, he said. I’ve carried that with me since then.”

His current study, to conclude in 2015 with about $3.3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, tracks 210 healthy subjects with high levels of reported chronic stress for six months. They are divided in three groups.

One group with 70 participants perform a form of yoga known as Kundalini, another 70 meditate and the rest listen to stress education audiobooks, all for 20 minutes a day at home. Kundalini is a form of yoga that incorporates meditation, breathing exercises and the singing of mantras in addition to postures. Denninger said it was chosen for the study because of its strong meditation component.

Participants come into the lab for weekly instruction for two months, followed by three sessions where they answer questionnaires, give blood samples used for genomic analysis and undergo neuro-imaging tests.

‘Immortality enzyme’

Unlike earlier studies, this one is the first to focus on participants with high levels of stress. The study published in May in the medical journal PloS One showed that one session of relaxation-response practice was enough to enhance the expression of genes involved in energy metabolism and insulin secretion and reduce expression of genes linked to inflammatory response and stress. There was an effect even among novices who had never practiced before.

Harvard isn’t the only place where scientists have started examining the biology behind yoga.

In a study published last year, scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn found that 12 minutes of daily yoga meditation for eight weeks increased telomerase activity by 43%, suggesting an improvement in stress-induced aging. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, shared the Nobel medicine prize in 2009 with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for research on the telomerase immortality enzyme, which slows the cellular aging process.

Build resilience

Not all patients will be able to stick to a daily regimen of exercise and relaxation. Nor should they have to, according to Denninger and others. Simply knowing breath-management techniques and having a better understanding of stress can help build resilience.

“A certain amount of stress can be helpful,” said Sophia Dunn, a clinical psychotherapist who trained at King’s College London. “Yoga and meditation are tools for enabling us to swim in difficult waters.” Bloomberg

Petrol Diesel Pumping tips

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 00:41:00 +0000

Petrol Diesel Pumping tips

(DO NOT DONATE FUEL to Service Stations)

Recently I came across a very useful tip.

I was surprised to know it but had a doubt so I talked to one of the pump technicians and he too accepted it as a fact.

1) Do not fill up the tank to the brim, with automated pumps with sensors fitted to the nozzles.

I think apart from providing space for the gas generated inside the petrol tank this is yet another reason why we fill the tank to the brim. Many of us are not aware that the petrol kiosk pump has a return pipe-line (in Pink). When the petrol tank (in the car) reaches full level, there is a mechanism to trigger off the pump latch and at the same time a return-valve is opened (at the top of the pump station) to allow excess petrol to flow back into the pump. But the return petrol has already pass through the meter, meaning you are donating the petrol back to the Oil Dealer.

2) Fill up, when it is cold.

Also only fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the petrol, when it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your liter is not exactly a liter. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the petrol, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

3) For Self Servicing pumps, slow pumping maximises benefit by reducing Vapours.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your Petrol tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more Petrol you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. petrol storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the Petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every litre is actually the exact amount.

4) Do not fuel, if the storage tank is being filled up - to avoid dirt

Another reminder, if there is a petrol truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy Petrol, DO NOT fill up; most likely the petrol is being stirred up as the Petrol is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Petrol buyers. It's really simple to do.

Immunotherapy (fighting cancer) tops the 2013 breakthrough list

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 06:31:00 +0000

Immunotherapy

A way of fighting cancer that turns the body’s immune cells into targeted tumor killers was named the breakthrough of the year by the US journal Science on Thursday.

Immunotherapy has only worked for a small number of patients, and only in certain cancers, including melanoma and leukemia, but experts believe its promise is huge.

“Oncologists, a grounded-in-reality bunch, say a corner has been turned and we won’t be going back,” said the journal Science.

Research began in the late 1980s when French scientists discovered a receptor on T-cells, called CTLA-4, a molecule that turned out to play an important role in regulating the immune system.

A decade later, a Texas researcher showed that blocking CTLA-4 in mice “could unleash T-cells against tumor cells in the animals, shrinking them dramatically,” the journal said.

More advances have followed. In the 1990s, a biologist in Japan discovered a molecule expressed in dying T-cells, called PD-1, which has also shown promise in the fight against cancer.

As many as five big pharmaceutical companies are now on board with immunotherapy. A new drug made by Bristol Myers-Squibb was approved in 2011. Called ipilimumab, it costs $120,000 per treatment course.

It’s costly, and by no means a sure bet. Research in 2012 on a group of 300 people showed the drug shrunk tumors by half or more in 31 percent of patients with melanoma, 29 percent with kidney cancer and 17 percent with lung cancer.

Research out this year on 1,800 people with melanoma who received ipilimumab, 22 percent were alive three years later.

A related treatment called chimeric antigen receptor therapy, which involves modifying a patient’s own T-cells to make them attack tumors, has succeeded in putting 45 of 75 people with leukemia in total remission, researchers said this year.

One of those success stories is Emily Whitehead, now age eight. Last year she became the first pediatric patient to receive the experimental therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

“She is doing great. She is almost 20 months cancer free now. Her health has just been wonderful. She is completely back to normal, back to school full time,” her mother, Kari, told AFP.

Emily was at the brink of death, and after two relapses doctors admitted they had no options.

Their hope was suddenly revived when her family learned about the experimental T-cell therapy and agreed to try it.

“There just wasn’t anything left for her,” her mother said. “This treatment has just been amazing for Emily and for all the other families who were told the same thing.”

The journal Science and its publisher, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, pointed to other key achievements in its annual top 10 breakthroughs issue.

They included:

- A new generation of cheaper solar cells called Perovskite cells, which are gaining efficiency and are cheaper than traditional silicon cells.

- Progress in growing lab versions of miniature human organs such as brains, kidneys and liver buds to better understand human disease.

- Stem cells derived from cloned human embryos.

- A better understanding of how sleep allows the brain to clean itself by expanding channels between neurons and allowing more cerebrospinal fluid to flow through.

- The importance of microbes in the understanding of the body’s overall health.

- A new way of designing a vaccine using the structure of an antibody, cheered for its potential against a common childhood illness, respiratory syncytial virus.

- The origin of cosmic rays was figured out after 100 years. It turns out they come from debris clouds left by supernovae, or exploding stars.

The journal Nature also released its list of the top scientists of 2013.

They included Russian meteorite hunter Viktor Grokhovsky, whose 30 years of expertise helped advance the study of a massive Chelyabinsk meteor that took astronomers by surprise when it crashed to Earth in February.

Another was Chinese virologist Hualan Chen, who helped quell an outbreak of H7N9 bird flu in humans by rushing to collect samples, leading to the closure of risky poultry markets.

She also published controversial research on engineered H1N1 and H5N1 flu hybrids that could pass between mammals.

Cancer Fighting Super Foods.

http://goo.gl/vhxY6F

Science and Technology - Exercise of Control

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 23:54:00 +0000

Science and Technology

Percentage of People with basic understanding is less than 10% in the world.

Percentage of people with working knowledge is less than 1%.

Lives of Billions are impacted both positively and negatively with the advancement of Science and Technology.

Who controls this branch of knowledge and guide and regulate the direction in which the research should progress/ regress??

Administrators/ Bureaucrats - Who are ignorant but arrogant with power.
Politicians/ Legislators/ Ministers - Who are by majority unqualified to make decisions by multiple reasons and wielding enormous power.
Media - Which is fairly crisp in reporting important events, but attaches lower importance unless it is commercial goods.
Scientists - Who are the greatest minority in the world?
Businessmen - Who are street smart enough to spot an opportunity and convert that to money. In fact, they shape up the way things should move, by educating/ sensitising the first three categories, in the method conducive to them.

In the words of Late Carl Sagan, the dangerous combustible mixture of Ignorance and Power concentrated in the administrators will lead the world to chaos.
Any takers for actions??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

Science and Technology is the branch of knowledge, which is a game changer. Just the consider the following.

t long before he died in 1996, Carl Sagan gave his last interview on the Charlie Roseshow, and seemed to give a dire warning about the rise of religious fundamentalism in America and its war on science.

Long before Richard Dawkins, Sagan was already at the forefront making the case for scientific thinking, arguing that it’s essential for progress. During the interview, he made the point that religious zealotry and pseudo-science have been around for ages and are nothing new. But if society loosens its hold on scientific thinking, it’s the ignorant politicians and fundamentalists that will step in and replace it.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology,” Sagan said. “And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.”

His connection to Indian thought, is worth its mention.
http://vedicambassador.wordpress.com/tag/carl-sagan/

Non Stick Kitchen Wear harmful??

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 16:41:00 +0000

The vessel used for cooking has a bearing on the health. Earlier, elders were using brass vessels, if Silver was unaffordable.
Stainless Steel occupied that slot in the soceity. Now, latest metallurgy improvements are giving new product - Non Stick Wear for kitchens,

Non Stick Wear has Perfluorinated compounds

Scientists have found a link between high levels of perfluorinated compounds - widely used in non-stick cookware - and diabetes.

In a new study, a research team led by Uppsala University said perfluorinated compounds are environmental toxins and there is a link between their high levels in blood and diabetes.

The research group at Uppsala University has previously shown associations between high levels of environmental toxins, such as PCB, pesticides, and phthalates and diabetes.

They have investigated whether elevated levels of another type of environmental toxin, so-called perfluorinated compounds, are related to diabetes.

Perfluorinated compounds are used in a wide variety of industrial and consumer products, including fire fighting foam, non-stick cookware, and grease and water-repellent materials such as food contact material, ski wax and GoreTex, for example.

In a group of more than a thousand 70-year-old men and women, levels of seven different perfluorinated compounds were measured in the blood and related to whether the individuals had diabetes (114 persons) or not.

These seven perfluorinated compounds were detectable in virtually all individuals in the study. "We saw that high levels, especially of one of the perfluorinated compounds, perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), were linked to diabetes," said Monica Lind, associate professor at the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Uppsala University.

"Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was also associated with diabetes in this group. We also saw that PFOA was linked to disrupted secretion of insulin from the pancreas," said Lind.

The study raises the question of whether high levels of certain perfluorinated compounds, which were found in all individuals in this study, are linked to the development of diabetes.

Matter of Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 02:16:00 +0000

Matter of Faith

(Narrating an incident of November 13)

Preamble

Faith is the phenomenon that keeps the world moving. It is quite often laced with Trust, Hope, Optimism and usually pragmatic thought to an extent. The efficacy of faith improves, with higher quotient of sincerity (on both ends) and pragmatics. In the case of divinity, it is pertinent to add an important dimension of devotion. Where worldly faith needs the quotient of Trust, which thinly borders on recent past experience interspersed with luck.

Tendency

Faith runs billions of people in this Universe. Without any assured guarantee of success, people tend to undertake many ventures. A farmer irrigates the land without the assurance of adequate rain and fair price for the prospective produce among other factors. A business venture is launched with the faith that it could succeed with the faith of prospective clients. Similarly, any client would entertain a new entrepreneur that this relation could stabilise and help their own business to flourish. For a family to thrive and sustain, faith based adjustments and sacrifices are vital.

Divinity or the factor of G

In this foreground of faith, how should one relate the essay on divinity is the topic broached in this narration. Normally, devotion is related to a person's own well-being or occasionally extended to the family. Very rarely, we witness an event of prayer or ritual being conducted for the overall benefit of the society at large.

However, a new trend develops in a section of society, if it is repeatedly battered by events beyond its reasonable control. Fortunately or otherwise, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh of Southern Indian Sub-Continent; called Machilipatnam has a notoriety of facing natural calamities. The location of the town itself is conspicuous, as observed from the important contour as depicted in the satellite imagery.

Generally, Post-Monsoon tropical storms, cyclones are hurricanes/ typhoons are the bane of Coastal India, especially in the Eastern Region, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu bear the brunt usually. The impact is harsh to critically severe for everyone. Fishermen and Farmers are hit the hardest by these calamities. Other than fore-warning, precaution, evacuation and emergency relief supplies, no government or scientific organisation can help the society to avoid the calamity. This is the hard fact of life.

Pondering

Man turns outward in his exploration, if his best efforts are not yielding the desired result in reasonable time frame. Sometimes, it extends to cosmos and even beyond. In this realm, the factor of G (standing for Greater Force called GOD) emerges. Even self made men, fond of relying on hard work (quite often overlooking the influence of external factors) look for answers or guidance from external factors. Thus the phenomena of astrology, astronomy and divinity are strengthened in the society.

Role of the Ruler

Historically, traditionally, morally and ethically; the role of the rulers is to ensure the welfare of the subjects. If the population lives peacefully with ample resources, the taxes are paid for the regime to strengthen. Accordingly, few rituals are prescribed for collective conduct in order to avert disasters and calamities at large. In the advent of famine, drought, wild fires or typhoons; rulers in ancient India organised mass prayers and rituals to tide over the crises and met with success reasonably.

However, in the secular India inheriting western thoughts, such practices were abandoned at large. Isolated incidents of prayers are organised by religious affairs ministries of local governments, which are often look down by the so-called progressive thinkers/ establishment with disdain. Media, our unaccountable monster plays a second fiddle to this trend. Thus, most of our population is oblivious to power of collective prayers in mitigating and averting a calamity.

Prevention or Cure

As mentioned above, repeated calamities cause our people to become depressed or philosophical. At times, the churning of the minds could lead to innovative thoughts to find out methods to avert a disaster or to lessen the brunt. Such Prevention of calamity is not only a benefit to the society, but also a great stabilisation factor for the economy.

Similar to the vaccination to prevent outbreak of diseases, preventive prayers could avert or lessen the fiery spells of the Factor G. Hence, many rituals and Mantras (Hymns) in the Vedic Tradition are conducted.

Shata Rudreeya

Rudra Adhyaaya of Yajurveda Samhita (Text) is a powerful prayer. This is called as Shata Rudreeya, where hundreds of omni-potent and omni present forms of the God are extolled. Homa (Ablation in the sacrificial fire) with these Mantras, is a method to appease the ferocious nature, Yajurveda prescribed.

Collective Prayers

The power of Individual conduct of a ritual is dwarfed by the collective might of the mass prayers. Therefore, people congregate at the places of worship. If the common motive is to dedicated to the benefit of the society and region, the effect would be greater than ever. (Rather than desiring personal benefit, every prayer should concentrate to achieve common benefit to avert an impending danger to the society.) If this principle is observed in letter and spirit, the society can reap rich dividends in short term too.

Unfolding of the events in 2013

Coastal region was battered by a very powerful cyclone called Phailin in October 2013. During the ensuing period, an organiser from Vijayawada (Smt. Nirmala Chowdary) was casually discussing plans for conducting a mass ritual at Vijayawada. The discussion crystallised in short period and the blessings were obtained from Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji, a great seer, for its successful conduct. The motive for such an event, was nothing more than the well being at large. Dates for the event were thought to be 30 November, 1st December and 2nd December to coincide with the last days of Kartika Maasa, a month special for the worship of Shiva, whose fiery in the times of delusion (Pralaya) is legendary.

Meanwhile, certain unforeseen circumstances caused the event to be pre-poned by a week. All of us, including our organisers about the prospects of successful conduct within two weeks. (From an organiser's point of view, necessary skilled manpower, resources and logistics are quite hectic, if not nightmarish.)

In the course of time, another cyclone Helen was also identified in the latter half of November '13 by the meteorologists. It was scheduled to cross the coast near Machilipatnam on 22nd November '13. Traditionally, the devotees at Machilipatnam pray to Sri Swamiji, whenever an impending cyclone is predicted to cross the coast at this point; since the establishment of an Ashrama at Manginapudi (sea coastal hamlet). And they had experienced the benefit of this prayer. Many a time, huge hurricanes had their intensity tapered down or the course of its direction drastically altered.

Mahaa Rudra Yaagam

Upon the direction of Sri Swamiji, the event - Mahaa Rudra Yaagam was announced. Luckily, all the logistics were arranged within a short time. Mahaa Rudram is a system of recitation and Homa, prescribed in Rudra Yaamala. It comprises of Abhishekam to Shiva, coupled with the recitation of 1331 chants of Rudra Mantras, with a Homa of 121 Chants.

Prior to that commencement of the ritual, we happened to visit a small village Kurumaddali, to advise a friend to manage the temple, he founded. That particular time was said to be the crossing of the coast at Machilipatnam, by cyclonic storm Helen. It was categorised as a low intensity cyclone, with gale speeds not exceeding 60 - 70 km per hour. At that odd hour, streets/ highways were empty, as people were advised to stay indoors.

During our visit to the temple, a couple of farmers named Sitaram and Sambasiva Rao narrated their share of woes due to frequent cyclones. This year, half their produce is wasted, which is not even sufficient to cover half the production costs. They were very pessimistic about the prospects. We empathised their plight and bid farewell.

Surprisingly IMD (Indian Meteorology Department) has found the formation of another intensive cyclone in South Andaman sea, more than 1500 km from that region. It was construed as more dangerous and intense cyclone, with speeds predicted to exceed 240 km per hour, dwarfing the previous cyclones of recent years. It was named Lehar.

Formative Stage of Lehar

The ritual Mahaa Rudram, commenced on Saturday 23 November 2013, with the invocation of deities and establishment of 11 pedestals of worship. Ritwiks (scholars) from Pithapuram (SGS Veda Pathashala), Vijayawada (Kanaka Durga Temple) had joined the team from Mysore (consisting of myself, Chinmaya Datta, Santosh Kumar and Surya Narayana). As the 3 day event was progressing, media persons sought the purpose of the ritual and its significance.

It was explained that praying to God was the best method to avert a potential disaster or to minimise the impact at least. As our Sadguru explains, never ask for an event/ incident to get annulled or postponed. Whatever has to happen, will happen. Pray for the wherewithal to withstand the impact. This will make you stronger and ready for any exigency.

Rational of this prayer

This exhort, is actually thought provoking. For a unit of energy consumed by a section of population, people close to power generation stations have face the consequences of pollution or heavy traffic. For us to enjoy the excellent and safe homes, people in the iron ore/ lime stone (for cement) mining areas have to undergo the terrific dust and pollution. For our safe sleep at our beloved home, a police man has to guard the street/ locality and a military man has to forsake his sleep at the border. To make someone happy, some people have to sacrifice some benefits of life. That is the barter system in the society.

Vitality of Rain Water

Similarly, if hinterland has to recharged with ground water, storm/ monsoon related rains are compulsory. Regions without the benefit of irrigation system (Rivers/ Rivulets/ Canals) have to sustain. Rain is the only source of livelihood. Humans are not the only creatures important for nature. Plants, Animals, Birds and insects also thrive on the same rain water. Hence, it is the duty of the nature to protect the species of its creation.

Therefore, front line (Coastline) regions will have to lose crops and related benefits, due to the storms and related rains. However, lesser the intensity, lesser the pain of the front line. For the survival of many creatures, some sacrifices are to be made by people, who are otherwise the beneficiaries of nature's bounty, with sufficient water resources due to rains compared to their lesser advantaged peers at hinterland.

Desired Result (Weakening of the Storm)

With this logic in mind, our prayers were to minimise the damage to ensure the safety of people. The Mahaa Rudra Yaagam smoothly concluded on 25th November 2013, 4th Monday of Kartika. People around, were still tense about the impact of the impending ferocity of Lehar. But, we were confident that our prayers will be answered sufficiently.

From that Monday, reports about weakening of the cyclone poured in to the relief of people. In the fag end, the storm crossed Machilipatnam, bringing rains normal to the region. At the time of crossing, it was categorised as a low intensity normal depression, with an intensity of 40 - 50 km per hour.

Here, we can observe the lessening of the ferocity of 240 km is limited to one fifth of its anticipated intensity. Before, estimating the colossal loss caused by storms at short intervals, we have to analyse the trauma of hapless poor farmers, whose lives are made or broken by the frequent storms.

But for the power of collective prayer devoid of personal elements, the nation can sustain its welfare and prosperity. One or two natural disasters or manmade disasters, can unwind decades of efforts to achieve prosperity. Hence, this practical experience made me wiser about the efficacy of prayer.

· Do not ask for guarantee of result without the guarantee of sincerity.

· Make your sincere effort without an element of self.

· Whatever is due to you, will be bestowed by the Almighty with compassion.

Picture at the time of LandFall

(Weakened Storms)

Om Namasshivaaya

========================================

More information about the course of storm can be had from NASA link also.

Pavamaana Mantras - Excellent method of cleansing the mind and body

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 01:31:00 +0000

Pavamana Homa

Wealth or poverty does not matter to a man of contentment.

मनसि च परितृप्ते कोर्थवान् को दरिद्रः।

The mankind is ever engaged in countless activities, as it is entangled in the web of successive desires in the infinite ocean of the worldliness, which is difficult to cross. One who is shackled in the astonishing bondage of desire always runs after pleasures. However one who is liberated of desire attains equipoise of intellect and stays still like a lame man.

P¡vam¡nyaÅ Punantu M¡m.

To a worldly man, entangled in the ocean of worldliness, several types of Punya (merit) and Papa (sin), whether known or unknown to him accrue for his various deeds. How so ever much Punya one accumulates, it is certain that one must experience the evil effects of one’s sins. Hence the merciful sages have stipulated some rituals and repentance, in order to uplift humanity. Many of such rituals are difficult to commoner. Hence Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Swamiji, widely believed as an incarnation of Lord Dattatreya, himself an ocean of mercy, has been conducting Pavamana Homa for the benefit of innumerable devotees.

The famous and auspicious Pavamana Mantras in the ninth Mandala of Rigveda, are 610 in number. The Mantras are well known as Pavamana Pancha Suktas. The following is the summary of the effect of these Mantras.

पावमान्यः पुनन्तु माम्।
“May the Pavamana Mantras relieve me of the grave sins such as

the fierce sin due to my physical and mental acts, and deeds
disobedience, negligence, harm committed to parents;
theft
killing cow or woman;
sin accrued during sales or purchases;
sin caused by several births (even causing or being born as illegitimate child);
sins due to one’s own unrighteousness such as marital or extra marital connections;
Eating food that is supposedly not to be eaten,
receipt of things that are supposedly not to be received;
eating impure food and food that is not sanctified;
killing or harma a pious person;
consuming intoxicants;
grabbing others’ property or illegal possession;
infanticide;
wrongful occupation of others properties;
adultery or unfaithful to spouse;
giving up traditional recital of stipulated texts
discontinuity or non - conduct of rituals and righteous acts, ordained to be done etc.
May these Mantras purify my body by removing all these sins committed by me during last year with my senses of action (karmendriya), senses of perception (Jnanendriya) and my mind (Manas). May untimely death to me be prevented.”

पठतां शृण्वताञ्चैव ददाति परमां गतिम्।।

Apart from this ” Those who recite these mantras and those who listen to them shall have fine progress spiritually equally.” Thus assert the mantras.Thus it is also obvious that these mantras benefit even the listener.

Kartika Bahula Ekadasi (11th Day after Poornima) is the stipulated day to perform Pavamana Homa annually. Dwadashi dat, Pooyamana Homa sequel of Pavamana Homa shall be conducted. Rigvidhana Scripture, details the procedure and time.
----------

manomayam

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