Fantasy or Prehistory: J. Lyon Layden's Prehistoric Fiction and News Blog

Friday, April 15, 2016

Meditation changes temperatures: Mind controls body in extreme experiments

Meditation changes temperatures:

Mind controls body in extreme experiments

By William J. Cromie
Gazette Staff

In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering.

If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.

Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours......

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html

Selected Peer-Reviewed Psi Research Publications

I have seen first hand that the editors of wikipedia will not allow peer reviewed scientific articles on Chi(Ki) energy and its effectiveness as a cancer treatment, so this article does not suprise me.

I have included the author's words and a link to the original article where you may download the scientific papers. -Joe

This is a selected list of downloadable peer-reviewed journal articles about psi (psychic) phenomena, most published in the 21^st century. There are also some papers of historical interest and other resources. A comprehensive list of important articles and books would run into the thousands. Click on the title of an article to download it.

Wikipedia describes parapsychology as a “pseudoscience,” meaning it might superficially resemble science, but it isn’t really about science. Wikipedia is wrong about many things, including this topic.

In fact, the Parapsychological Association -- the international professional organization for scientists and scholars interested in psi phenomena – is an elected affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest scientific organization in the world. Among the criteria that the AAAS Council uses to decide if an organization is suitable for consideration as an affiliate is that the organization’s aims must be “clearly directed toward, or consistent with, the objectives of the AAAS.” Those objectives includes the promotion of science, not pseudoscience.

Other commonly repeated critiques about psi research, such as “these phenomena are impossible,” “there’s no valid scientific evidence,” or “the results are all due to fraud,” have been soundly rejected for many decades. Informed debates today are based on discussions of theoretical models, the empirical evidence, and interpretation of that evidence.

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

Were the Larger Orangutans of the Ice Age Ground-dwelling and Bipedal?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2819487/

https://books.google.com/books?id=CL-uCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=ground-dwelling+larger+orangutans+pleistocene&source=bl&ots=gQY5mFBjpL&sig=pX-eX1rl-obdTJrc4SYZcOuvv8k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1j6vH6o_MAhVKcz4KHdZwC3QQ6AEIMTAE#v=onepage&q=ground-dwelling%20larger%20orangutans%20pleistocene&f=false

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/12/14/encounters-gigantic-orangutans/

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7249/full/459910a.html

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

New Photos Reveal Giant Easter Island Moai Statues are Covered in Mysterious Symbols -

New images from the 2012 excavation of Easter Island’s iconic statues reveal the renowned heads are not only connected to giant bodies, but the bodies are covered in mysterious designs and symbols, which researchers have likened to tattoos. - See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-general/new-photos-reveal-giant-easter-island-moai-statues-are-covered-mysterious-symbols-020389#sthash.xam735OW.dpuf

Aliens Under the Scanner: Similarities Found in Brains of Alleged Abductees

I've never been to Hawaii, but since my days of watching Magnum P.I. on TV, I always thought of it as a true paradise --especially if you had a red Ferrari and an epic 'stache like Tom Selleck.

But even these tropical islands would seem like Hell on Earth, if you thought you were kidnapped by strange non-human creatures, subjecting you to all sorts of horrendous experiments.

This is exactly what Neurologist Dr. Michael B. Russo was hearing from his patients, who were been referred to him by their primary physicians after complaining about migraines or other problems, once they felt comfortable enough to share their terrible secret. Following the logical guidelines of his career, and armed with a powerful dense-array electroencephalography (DEEG) machine --the only one of its kind in Hawaii-- Dr. Russo scanned the heads of his patients, and instead of metallic implants left by their alien tormentors, what he found was certain consistent abnormalities in their parietal lobes, which is the area of the brain in charge of processing visual and auditory stimuli, and integrating them into higher thinking.http://dailygrail.com/Alien-Nation/2015/6/Aliens-Under-the-Scanner-Similarities-Found-Brains-Alleged-Abductees

Does Science Advance One Funeral At A Time?

Over the years Planck's Principle's been popularized by scientists with respectable credentials who can't get peer-reviewed, even if they put nudies of Jennifer Lawrence in their appendices. It's cold comfort believing The Man's keeping them down and stalling scientific progress, but is that the case?

Over at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a new paper suggests the answer is a resounding yes. But like all topics muddied up with human emotions and foibles, the conclusion is hardly cut-and-dried.

Pierre Azoulay, Christian Fons-Rosen, and Joshua Graff Ziven chose to study the field of academic life sciences. Tons of discoveries have been made over past decades, opening up new frontiers, creating many specialists for those new fields, illustrating a microcosm representative of the whole of science. Drawing upon the vast PubMed database, Azoulay and company determined who were the superstars in a particular field based on their professional achievements and papers. Out of more than 12,000 star scientists, they identified 452 who died suddenly. Their former collaborators, left in a lurch, pretty much stopped publishing at the rate when they were riding their deceased guru's coattails. After all former colleagues would be wary of anyone finding out they hardly did any of the heavy lifting, which is where outsiders come in.http://dailygrail.com/Fresh-Science/2015/12/Does-Science-Advance-One-Funeral-Time

Neanderthals may have been infected by diseases carried out of Africa by humans, say researchers - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/neanderthals-may-have-been-infected-by-diseases-carried-out-of-africa-by-humans-say-researchers#sthash.TN6VAsLV.dpuf

Review of latest genetic evidence suggests infectious diseases are tens of thousands of years older than previously thought, and that they could jump between species of ‘hominin’. Researchers says that humans migrating out of Africa would have been ‘reservoirs of tropical disease’ – disease that may have sped up Neanderthal extinction.

Humans migrating out of Africa would have been a significant reservoir of tropical diseases
Charlotte Houldcroft

A new study suggests that Neanderthals across Europe may well have been infected with diseases carried out of Africa by waves of anatomically modern humans, or Homo sapiens. As both were species of hominin, it would have been easier for pathogens to jump populations, say researchers. This might have contributed to the demise of Neanderthals.

- See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/neanderthals-may-have-been-infected-by-diseases-carried-out-of-africa-by-humans-say-researchers#sthash.TN6VAsLV.dpufhttp://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/neanderthals-may-have-been-infected-by-diseases-carried-out-of-africa-by-humans-say-researchers

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Interpreting the Fossil Record

Paleoanthropology is the study of early forms of humans and their primate ancestors. It is similar to paleontology

except its focus is documenting and understanding human biological and cultural evolution. Paleoanthropologists do not look for dinosaurs and other early creatures. However, like paleontology, the data for paleoanthropology is found mainly in the fossil record. Before examining this evidence, it is necessary to first learn what fossils are and how they are formed. In addition, it is important to know how paleoanthropologists date fossils and other evidence of the prehistoric past.

The Nature of Fossils

In order to understand fossils, it is useful to learn how they formed. Taphonomy

is the study of the conditions under which plants, animals, and other organisms become altered after death and sometimes preserved as fossils. Research into these matters has shown that fossilization is a rare phenomenon. In order for a fossil to form, the body must not be eaten or destroyed by erosion and other natural forces. Preservation would most likely occur if the organism were buried quickly and deeply. In most environments, soft body parts, such as skin, muscle, fat, and internal organs, deteriorate rapidly and leave no trace. Only very rarely do we find the casts of such tissues. Similarly, the totally soft-bodied creatures, like jellyfish, are very uncommon fossils. Hard body parts, such as dense bones, teeth, and shells, are what most often are preserved. It is likely that the vast majority of fossils will never be found before they are destroyed by erosion. That coupled with the fact that extremely few living things are preserved long enough after death to become fossils makes the large collections of fossils in the museums of the world quite remarkable. It is a testament to the tenacious searching by fossil hunters over the last two centuries. ..

http://anthro.palomar.edu/time/time_1.htm

Many species now going extinct may vanish without a fossil trace

We judge our planet’s biological past by using geological evidence – fossils. Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. But not organisms form fossils, and not all fossils are preserved. Now, a new study found that many species might be vanishing without a trace, and this could make geologists underestimate previous extinctions and disruptive events...

http://www.zmescience.com/science/geology/fossils-trace-22032016/

New ape fossil

Posted on August 22, 2007 by John S. Wilkins

The National Geographic and the news services are touting a new ape fossil found in Ethiopia as “forcing a rethink on human evolution”. As usual, the headlines are hyperbolic. This ape is fragmentary, and so far only teeth and a jaw bone have been found, and the teeth are similar to gorilla teeth. Gorillas are thought on molecular grounds to have split off from the chimp-human clade about 7 million years ago, but this specimen is 10 million years old. What gives?

I can think of a couple of options. One is that, as I have reported previously, teeth are not great diagnostic material for phylogeny. They are very adaptable, and if a species finds itself in a similar environment with a similar diet, the teeth will tend to evolve rapidly to a particular morphology similar to that of relatives who later evolve in the same situation...

http://evolvingthoughts.net/2007/08/new_ape_fossil/

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

More on the 1915 Photographs of a Megalithic Stone Pulling in Nias, Indonesia

Earlier today I wrote this post about some pretty sweet early 20th century photographs from a megalithic stone-pulling ceremony on the island of Nias, Indonesia. I found some additional photos and (I think) figured out a few things that I wanted to pass on. I could be wrong about some of this - if I am please let me know.

First, I'm now 99 percent sure all the photos show the same stone being moved. If you look carefully at the first photo of the stone (A), you'll notice it has been shaped. There is a raised area on the "upstream" end, which itself includes another raised area in the center. The corners of the stone are rounded.

Those same features can be seen on the other stone-pulling photos, convincing me that all the photos are of the same stone. I think all the photos come from a two volume 1917 publication entitled Nias: Ethnographische, geographische en historische aanteekeningen en studien, by E. E. W. Gs. Schroeder. From what I gather, one of the volumes is text while the other is photographs. I don't have access to either at the moment (let me know if you have it?), but I'm guessing all the Nias stone-pulling photos in the previous post come from the volume of photographs.

Second, I found an additional photo of the stone in the village of Bawömataluo on Alain Testart's website. It shows a line of slaughtered pigs in the street near the stone.

Third, I think that the stone shown in the photographs is the horizontal stone on the left in the photo ofBawömataluo below (source). The stone has been smoothed and carved, but notice the two-level raised portion at the end.http://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/more-on-the-1915-photographs-of-a-megalithic-stone-pulling-in-nias-indonesia

Early Homo sapiens mated with both Neanderthals and extinct ‘Denisovans’ species: researchers

Our species, Homo sapiens, has a more adventurous sexual history than previously realized, and all that bed-hopping long ago has left an indelible mark on the human genome.

Scientists said on Friday an analysis of genetic information on about 1,500 people from locations around the world indicated at least four interbreeding episodes tens of thousands of years ago, three with our close cousins the Neanderthals and one with the mysterious extinct human species known as Denisovans.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/early-homo-sapiens-mated-with-both-neanderthals-and-extinct-denisovans-species-researchers/