HEALTH AND WELLNESS

            Scientists have long known that the eyes of mammals contain neurons that respond to light and set the body’s internal, or circadian, clock. It was long assumed that this light-sensing function was performed by known visual cells called rods and cones. But in 1999, report the journal Science, researchers found that “mutant mice lacking all rods and cones [who are thus functionally blind] still have light-responsive clocks.” This led researchers to the conclusion that “some other cells in the eye had to be sensing light”            Now these elusive light sensors have been found. Although intermingled with the image-forming rods and cones, the sensors form “a separate visual circuit, running in parallel with this image-forming visual system,” explains Science. The newly discovered circuit’s functions include governing pupil size and melatonin release, synchronizing the body’s internal clock with the cycle of light and dark and other tasks. It may even play a role in

                                                             Few fish grab our attention the way the clown fish does. Perhaps it wins our hearts with its fancy coloring, which may remind us of a circus clown. Or maybe we are struck by its surprising choice of home –among the stinging tentacles of a sea anemone. Not surprisingly, another name for the clown fish is anemonefish .              Like many Hollywood actors, clown fish are not averse to photographs. Divers and snorkelers can usually expect clown fish to pose for pictures, since they rarely stray far from home and are not particularly shy.            But what makes clown fish amazing is their seemingly risky lifestyle. Living among poisonous tentacles would seem to be comparable to setting up home in a nest of serpents. Still, clown fish and their anemone of choice are inseparable. What makes this strange partnership possible and successful?           Like most good partnerships, clown fish and anemones give and ta

                                                               Have you ever looked at the night sky through a telescope? Many who have can tell you that they still remember the first time they found themselves looking at the planet Saturn. It is almost a startling sight. Against a backdrop of endless black dusted with countless glittering stars, there hangs a luminous orb wreathed with flat, elegant rings!            What are these rings? Back in 1610, when the astronomer Galileo first looked at Saturn through his handmade telescope, the view was so fuzzy that Saturn looked like a planet with ears –a central orb flanked by two smaller ones. As telescopes improved over the years, astronomers saw the rings more clearly, but they still argued over the composition of the rings. Many asserted that the rings were rigid, solid disks. Not until 1895 did astronomers have convincing proof that the rings were composed of many particles of rock and ice.          The book The Far Plane

      This priceless Egyptian false door carved out of stone, from the tomb of venerable Hanout, dates from the twelfth dynasty [2000-1788 BC.].       The first Mastabas [tombs in the ground] of the old kingdom had no rooms within them and only a false door in the East side. The dead, dwelling in the West behind the door, might enter again into the world of the living at will. This false door was finally elaborated into a kind of chapel-chamber in the mass of the masonry.       Throughout the years, false doors were changed to the west wall of the chamber so that the deceased, when looking out of the false door, would be facing the valley where the offerings were brought.       This door represented a symbolic entrance and exit which “Ba” or soul of the deceased could use to reappear from the beyond in order to make away the offerings placed in the tombs by survivors. Another purpose of the false door was to hide the true entrances to the burial chamber so that the tomb r

                                      DÉJÀ VU gives us the feeling we have experienced an event before, even though this may seem to be an impossibility. Thus, the feeling of familiarity accompanying déjà vu is often unexpected and inexplicable, leading many people to wonder if their déjà vu experiences are psychic, physiological, or both.          A number of mechanisms have been advanced to account for the déjà vu experience. Because psychic experiences of many kinds have been associated with déjà vu, it has often been suggested that déjà vu itself is a psychic experience. In this regard, déjà vu has been reported to be the result of reincarnation memories, subconscious memories of dream projections or out-of-body –experiences, subconscious memories of precognitive dreams, and clairvoyance. A higher frequency of déjà vu experiences have been reported for those who meditate frequently.        Another proposed mechanism for déjà vu is that of biochemically encoded ancestral

                                Robert Frost, in the last verse of “The Road Not Taken”                                          “I shall be telling this with a sigh                                            Somewhere ages and ages hence:                                            Two roads diverged in a wood, and I                                            I took the one less traveled by,                                             And that has made all the difference.”         It deals with my favorite philosophical question: CHOICE. What choices do we have and what do we do with those choices? We can ponder on endlessly how much of life is predetermined, how we are limited by heredity, intellect, social status, environment, economics. That is not the issue here; nor do I believe that it is important. However limited the choices, what matters is what we do with the choices we have.         Victor Franki survived the death camps of World War II to write in man’s