Month: December 2012

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What if Being Pronoiac is Good for you?

The Harvard School of Public Health in Boston has found that a positive outlook on life can actually protect your heart from cardiovascular disease.

In this comprehensive review of over 200 studies of various forms of well-being and cardiovascular health outcomes, Harvard researchers Julia Boehm and Laura Kubzansky discovered that certain psychological traits—optimism, positive emotions and a sense of meaning—offer measurable protection against heart attacks and strokes. These characteristics have been found to slow the progression of cardiovascular disease as well.

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There are More Things in Heaven and Earth Than are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy

Does water have memory? Can it retain an “imprint” of energies to which it has been exposed? A recent experiment provides interesting results.

New research from the Aerospace Institute of the University of Stuttgart in Germany supports the theory that water has a memory—a claim that could change our whole way of looking at the world.

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Don’t Underestimate the Forces of Good

Peace in our time? Scientist makes bold prediction that war is on the wane and will halve over next 40 years.

  • University of Oslo research suggests number of countries at war will fall from one in six to one in 12
  • Higher education, lower infant mortality and lower population growth are reasons why the world can expect a more peaceful future
  • Current conflicts in Libya, Tajikistan, Syria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Iraq will probably be over
  • The risk of conflict will be greatest in India, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and Tanzania
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Don’t Underestimate the Forces of Regeneration

Mexico City: Now One of Safest Places in Mexico – Once infamous for its pollution, lawlessness, & chaos, it’s at the vanguard of ecological & civic change. Abortion, gay marriage, & gay adoption is legalized. Outsiders who once viewed the city as terrorizing, now want to visit, to live here.

Mayor Ebrard steps down on Dec. 5 with wide approval ratings over his six-year administration, which has changed Mexico City both on the surface and in ways much deeper. For starters, Mexico City simply looks different. There are all-women buses that circulate the city and newly paved bike paths traversed by men in suits commuting to work.

Perhaps the most important changes have taken place under the surface, via new laws, climate action, and violence-combating plans. Abortion was legalized in 2007, as was gay marriage in 2010, and later gay adoption. Mexico City has been at the vanguard of ecological change, and has also been transformed by the things one no longer sees: It’s now perceived as one of the safest places in Mexico.

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This Year in Pronoia History

Abolitionist Donaldina Cameron was a courageous, compassionate zealot who is credited with rescuing some 3,000 people from slavery and breaking the back of the Chinese slave trade in the U.S.

Donaldina Cameron barged into brothels and uncovered hidden trap doors to find the terrified teenage girls held behind them. She stood up to threats from the gangs who made money from trafficking in Chinese slavery. She raised hundreds of girls in the mission house, wiping away tears, giving in to requests for midnight snacks, and gradually training previous enslaved young women to live on their own. She advocated in the courts on their behalf.

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Conspiracy to Find a Cure

A trio of oral medicines from Abbott Laboratories Inc to treat hepatitis C produced unprecedented cure rates in patients who had failed to benefit from standard treatment, as well as very high cure rates for newly treated patients

Some 93 percent of patients who failed prior therapy had a sustained virologic response (SVR), meaning they were considered cured, after 12 weeks of taking the trio of new drugs, plus ribavirin.

“Nobody anywhere has broken the 50 percent mark in (cure rates) for this population,” Scott Brun, a senior Abbott research executive said in an interview. “These are robust results.”