By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

Feathered prodigy: N’kisi leads the field
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.
The bird, a captive African grey called N’kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

N’kisi’s remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine.

N’kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.

About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N’kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.

Polished wordsmith

He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

One N’kisi-ism was “flied” for “flew”, and another “pretty smell medicine” to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N’kisi said: “Got a chimp?”

School’s in: He is a willing learner
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: “You got to put this bird on the camera.”

Dr Goodall says N’kisi’s verbal fireworks are an “outstanding example of interspecies communication”.

In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.

Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.

Captives’ frustrations

This was despite the researchers discounting responses like “What ya doing on the phone?” when N’kisi saw a card of a man with a telephone, and “Can I give you a hug?” with one of a couple embracing.

Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said: “The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the biggest leap of all has been with parrots.”

Alison Hales, of the World Parrot Trust, told BBC News Online: “N’kisi’s amazing vocabulary and sense of humour should make everyone who has a pet parrot consider whether they are meeting its needs.

“They may not be able to ask directly, but parrots are long-lived, and a bit of research now could mean an improved quality of life for years.”

All images courtesy and copyright of Grace Roselli.

Link to original story with pictures

At about 8:30 AM on Sunday, 11 December 2005, a crab fisherman working the open waters east of the Farallon Islands, about 18 miles off the coast of San Francisco, spotted a whale that had become entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots. The whale was a female humpback, about 45 to 50 feet in length and weighing an estimated 50 tons, who had likely become snared while traversing the humpbacks’ usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California.

A rescue team was hastily assembled, and by 2:30 PM divers had evaluated the situation and determined that the imperiled whale was so badly entangled in the crab pot lines that the only way to save her was to dive beneath the surface and cut the nylon ropes that were ensnaring her. As James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, reported:
“I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it,” said Moskito. “I really didn’t think we were going to be able to save it.”

Moskito said about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, were wrapped around the animal. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale’s mouth.

The crab pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal’s blubber and leaving visible cuts.

At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow-hole out of the water.
Four divers spent about an hour cutting the nylon ropes with a special curved knife, a risky undertaking since a single flip of the gargantuan mammal’s tail could easily have killed any of them. Eventually they freed the humpback, a feat that a represenative of the Marine Mammal Center (MMC) in Marin County described as the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback.

The divers told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter that the whale seemingly thanked them for its deliverance once the rescue operation was complete:
When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles, according to the rescuers. Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one.

“It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it. It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun. It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you,” Moskito said. “I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience.”

Whale experts say it’s nice to think that the whale was thanking its rescuers, but nobody really knows what was on its mind.

“You hate to anthropomorphize too much, but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it,” Mick Menigoz said. “I don’t know for sure what it was thinking, but it’s something that I will always remember. It was just too cool.”

Original Article Here

Tired of the constant barrage of negative stories and ideas in the standard stream of what we have traditionally called news? Granted, it’s imperative we know what’s going on in the world, but the bias in favor of negative stories is overwhelming and unbalanced. We need a balance, not the elimination of one or the other . . . check this out for some bias in the positive direction . . .

-Zack

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The great news network, a positive news site where everyone can contribute.
All news articles on the great news network have been found and submitted by its readers. [www.greatnewsnetwork.org]

SAN FRANCISCO – There’s no doubt that laughter feels good, but is there real neurophysiology behind it and what can you do about it?
In a paper being presented in an American Physiological Society session at Experimental Biology 2006, Lee S. Berk of Loma Linda University, reports that not only is there real science and psychophysiology, but just the anticipation of the “mirthful laughter” involved in watching your favorite funny movie has some very surprising and significant neuroendocrine/hormone effects.

According to Berk: “The blood drawn from experimental subjects just before they watched the video had 27% more beta-endorphins and 87% more human growth hormone, compared to blood from the control group, which didn’t anticipate the watching of a humorous video. Between blood pulls, the control group stayed in a waiting room and could choose from a wide variety of magazines,” he explained.

*Paper presentation: “Beta-Endorphin and HGH increase are associated with both the anticipation and experience of mirthful laughter,” 12:30 p.m.- 3 p.m. Sunday April 2, APS Behavioral neuroscience & drug abuse Section abstract 233.18/board #C706. Research was by Lee S. Berk, Department of Health Promotion and Education, School of Public Health and Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University; Stanley A. Tan, Oakcrest Health Research Institute, Yucaipa; and James Westengard, Dept. of Pathology, School of Medicine; Berk is associated with all three institutions.

HGH, endorphin difference is long-lasting; setting the baseline and environment is key

Berk said that the strong difference between the two groups in terms of human growth hormone (HGH) and beta-endorphin blood levels was maintained from just prior to the beginning of video watching, throughout the hour of viewing and afterwards, also.

“We believe the results suggest that the anticipation of a humor/laughter eustress (positive stress) event initiates changes in neuroendocrine response prior to the onset of the event itself,” Berk said. “From our prior studies, this modulation appears to be concomitant with mood state changes, and taken together, these would appear to carry important, positive implications for wellness, disease-prevention and most certainly stress-reduction,” he noted.

In the current experiment, Berk and his colleagues studied 16 healthy and fasting males, who hadn’t exercised for at least a day and were not taking supplement medications. The test subjects had chosen a favorite video. Three days before the experiment, all the subjects were told which group they were randomly selected to be in, experimental (video watching) or control (no video watching). All subjects had blood drawn just before the video watching experiment began (baseline), four times during the hour-long experiment, and three times afterward.

“One of the keys in this kind of experiment is to set the baseline and control environment carefully,” Berk said. “In this case, the control group basically sits in a ‘neutral’ room waiting to have their blood drawn, and on the tables there is a wide variety of magazines that they can browse, because you don’t want to bias what they do or watch. Time and behavior have proved me right with this approach,” he added.

Earlier experiments showed stress reduction

Berk said the results of this “anticipatory mirthful laughter experience, which is a kind of eustress or ‘positive/good stress’ event, builds on our earlier work and may constitute a real construct for what is the ‘biology of hope.’” Earlier experiments showed that viewing a favorite funny video can offset symptoms of chronic stress, which can suppress various components of the immune responses, particularly those related to anti-viral and anti-tumor defenses. In addition, there appears to be a rebalancing of the Th1/Th2 immune response which suggestively could lead to reduction of autoimmune issues.

“Mirthful laughter diminishes the secretion of cortisol and epinephrine, while enhancing immune reactivity. In addition, mirthful laughter boosts secretion of growth hormone, an enhancer of these same key immune responses. The physiological effects of a single one-hour session viewing a humorous video has appeared to last up to 12 to 24 hours in some individuals,” Berk noted, ” while other studies of daily 30-minute exposure produces profound and long-lasting changes in these measures.

Next steps to seek physiological linkage mechanisms

In addition, Berk noted: “An area we will pursue is the modulation and change in Th1 and Th2 cytokine and inflammatory immune responses to the anticipation and experience of the positive mood state changes associated with mirthful laughter.”

Future research in this area with more subjects “needs to elaborate these findings in psychoneuroimmunology understanding and the mechanism linkage modulation between anticipatory positive behaviors and neuroendocrine and immune responses,” Berk said. “It may sound corny but we in the health care medical sciences need to ‘get serious about happiness’ and the lifestyle that produces it, relative to mind, body and spirit and its biotranslation,” he added.

“Why do you think Reader’s Digest has claimed that ‘Laughter is the Best Medicine’ for so many years?” Berk concludes.

###
The American Physiological Society was founded in 1887 to foster basic and applied bioscience. The Bethesda, Maryland-based society has more than 10,500 members and publishes 14 peer-reviewed journals containing almost 4,000 articles annually.

APS provides a wide range of research, educational and career support and programming to further the contributions of physiology to understanding the mechanisms of diseased and healthy states. In May 2004, APS received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).

Editor’s Note: For further information or to schedule an interview with a member of the research team, please contact Mayer Resnick at the APS newsroom @ 415.905.1024 (March 31-April 5); or 301.332.4402 (cell) or 301.634.7209 (office), mresnick@the-aps.org; or Christine Guilfoy at 978.290.2400 (cell) or 301.634.7253 (office).

A searchable online program for EB is at http://www.faseb.org/meetings/eb2006/call/default.htm

Experimental Biology is an annual scientific meeting convened by the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology, including the American Physiological Society (APS) and other biomedical societies. The meeting features “nominated” lectures, symposia, research presentations, awards, a job placement center, and an exhibit of scientific equipment, supplies, and publications. This year’s participating Societies are APS, American Association of Anatomists, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society for Investigative Pathology, American Society for Nutritional Sciences, and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Link to Original: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-04/aps-jte033006.php

By LANCE GAY
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

In spite of what Mother taught you about the benefits of eating broccoli, data collected by the U.S. government show that the nutritional content of America’s vegetables and fruits has declined during the past 50 years — in some cases dramatically.

Donald Davis, a biochemist at the University of Texas, said that of 13 major nutrients in fruits and vegetables tracked by the Agriculture Department from 1950 to 1999, six showed noticeable declines — protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C. The declines ranged from 6 percent for protein, 15 percent for iron, 20 percent for vitamin C, and 38 percent for riboflavin.

“It’s an amazing thing,” said Davis, adding that the decline in nutrient content has not been widely noticed.

He said an agriculture scientist appears to have been the first to pick up the disappearance of nutrients in 1981 in a paper comparing the data on nutrients on garden crops grown in the United States with those grown in England.

Davis, who discussed his findings at a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in St. Louis, suspects the trend in agriculture toward encouraging crops that grow the fastest and biggest is a reason for the decline. The past five decades have been marked by the “Green Revolution,” which has seen a marked increase in U.S. production and yields as farmers have turned to the fastest-growing and greatest-producing plants.

The tradeoff is that the faster-growing plants aren’t able to acquire the nutrients that their slower-growing cousins can, either by synthesis or from the soil. He said there also are differences in the amounts of nutrients lost in differing varieties of wheat and broccoli.

Davis said he doesn’t want his study to encourage people to stop eating vegetables on the grounds they lack nutrients.

“That’s completely wrong,” he said, contending his study shows that people need to eat more vegetables and fruits, not less. “Vegetables are extraordinarily rich in nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals. They are still there, and vegetables and fruits are our best sources for these.”

Al Bushway, a food-science professor at the University of Maine and an expert with the Institute of Food Technologists, said the decline of nutrients in vegetables and fruits could be made up through other foods Americans eat.

“For vegans only using plant sources for food, this could be an issue,” he said. But he said most Americans would pick up adequate quantities of calcium they need by drinking milk.
Bushway said that fruits and vegetables are still crucial to providing nutrients people need. “They are an important part of the diet — extremely important,” he said.

The Agriculture Department data that Davis used doesn’t include all of the nutrients scientists today can identify in fruits and vegetables.

Same article in situ.

Excerpted from Abraham-Hicks Workshop G-1-29-05, San Antonio, TX

Are you knowing what you are wanting? An evolving thing? Are you enjoying the expansion of your desire? And are you noticing that it is expanding?

As you begin to recognize that you get to decide all of it, and as you begin to appreciate the contrast that makes deciding or concluding, or preferring, more obvious, then you begin to sincerely enjoy the contrast.

We always begin by asking: Those manifestations that have not yet come about are still pleasing to you, yes? And some lie and say yes, others say no, but we want you to come to the place where you say yes and really mean it. “Yes, there are things that I want that have not come into manifestation yet. There are things I want that I can’t even see any way of them happening—but they are still refreshing and delightful to me. I still feel anticipation. I still feel encouraged. They still feel fresh and good to me.” And we want that for you.

We want your unfulfilled desires to feel good to you, because, well, there are two reasons: If you cannot make peace with where you are, then the unfulfilled desires are very slow in becoming fulfilled because that angst you feel about things not yet happening, is an indication of a vibration that’s literally holding it apart, from you.

So, when you’re sick and you want to be well, and you’ve been sick for a long time and it doesn’t seem like you’re getting better, or when you have one of those diagnoses that says you’re probably not going to get better, and so, instead of feeling hopeful, you feel fearful— improvement is very hard to come. In fact, it cannot come under those conditions.

The vibrational difference between feeling hopeful and feeling fearful is the difference between getting well and not getting well. It’s the difference between holding this condition on and on and on, or letting it go.

So, in the same way, we say, your current financial affairs could be not good. You could have more bills than you have income. You could have people hounding you on the telephone or beating on your door every day… And we say, so that’s what-is; that’s the action journey that you are upon. But you could have that financial condition percolating along and you could feel hopeful, or, you could have that condition percolating along and you could feel fearful. And the difference between fearful and hopeful is the difference between things improving for you.

This is a Vibrational Universe and you are Vibrational Beings. You don’t set your radio dial on 630 AM and expect to hear what’s being broadcast on 98.6 FM. You understand you’ve got to line those frequencies up, and so you do. You don’t stubbornly set it on the station that you don’t want to hear and then demand that the laws of physics change so that you can hear it anyway, without you doing anything about it… You can’t be beating the drum of things gone wrong—and offering a vibration about things going wrong—and be in the vibrational place of receiving what you are wanting.

Make peace with wherever you stand. And here’s the most important part: When you feel despair, or anything that doesn’t feel good, and you reach for a thought that feels better, what comes right along with that is a conscious awareness that you do have some control of your experience. And friends, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of that conscious awareness that you can do something about the way you feel.

When you choose a thought that feels better than the thought that you were choosing before, and you consciously acknowledge that you had the power to choose it, and that you did choose it, and that it did change your vibrational frequency— now, there’s no place you cannot go. Now, that cloud of despair, that cloud of not being able to control your own experience goes away.

There is not anything that any of you want—whether it’s a material object, a state of being, a relationship, a circumstance or event… there’s nothing that you have ever wanted or anybody you’ve ever known has ever wanted—that is for any other reason than you think you will feel better in the having of it… And when you show yourself that you can feel better just because you’ve decided that you want to feel better, and that you have the power to choose a thought that feels better, now, you’re on your way. And there’s nowhere that you cannot go along this Emotional Scale. And when you make it up there into the consistent range of feeling pretty darn wonderful, then wonderful things become the basis of your experience.

Sometimes well-meaning people will encourage you to get happy faster than you can. And the reason that we say that is because, as we said earlier, you cannot put your radio dial on 630 AM and hear what’s being broadcast on 98.6 FM; the frequencies have to match up. And if you are in despair, or fear, or anger, you can’t jump all the way into bliss; you can’t even get a whiff of bliss. It’s a different vibrational frequency.

So, what we have noticed as we’ve been watching you, we notice that when you try to jump from anger or despair all the way to bliss, you don’t make the jump; you can’t possibly do it. And it’s not because you’re not good; it’s because Law of Attraction is not going to give you access to thoughts or memories or experiences, or other people, that’s very far from where you are offering your vibration.

It is so important that you decide today (well, you can decide tomorrow; you can decide any time you want to, but it will be important to you when you make this decision) that you’re not going to try to jump frequencies… It doesn’t matter where you are; you can move gradually into increasingly better places.

The thing that is so important is that you, now, once and for all, make a decision that the relativity you’re going to be aware of is only going to be the relationship between how I am feeling, and how I want to feel. In other words, My dominant intent is to find the best-feeling thoughts that I can find from where I am. Not the best-feeling thought I’ve ever thought, or not the best-feeling thought that anybody has ever thought, but just the best-feeling thought that I have access to, right now.

Decide, really soon, that you are not going to compare your emotional state with anybody else’s, because their emotional state is only about their emotional state; it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Your friend that says, “Cheer up; be happy; come with me,” say to your friend, “I was depressed yesterday, and today I’m really, really angry. And it’s the best I can do. So, don’t ask me to jump up there in your bright, fluffy, sunshine, lollipop and roses vibration; it’s not possible. It’s a quantum leap I cannot make. Go away, unless you like to be around an angry person.”

Decide that you’re going to be aware of how you feel, and that how you feel really matters, and feel exhilaration when your vibration shifts. When you move from despair or fear into anger, we want you to have a triumphant feeling of celebration because that was enormous, important movement, vibrationally, and because once you get angry, you can move rather quickly into frustration, and when you find that fresh breath of air that frustration gives you, we want you to stop and celebrate your achievement—but you’re not going to be able to do that if you are trying to compare yourself with where others are….

Your creativity, has only to do with your relationship with the Source Energy that creates worlds. And your emotions tell you everything you need to know about that relationship. So, it doesn’t matter how happy somebody else is; it only matters how happy you are.

Do you know how, in the classroom, they’ll give you an A for this behavior, and a B for this behavior, or an E, or an F for that behavior. And so, you begin to think that somebody up there in joy and appreciation should get the A, and somebody down here in depression should get the E or the F. And what we want to say to you is, when you move from depression or fear into anger, give yourself an A, because that movement means everything.

What it means is, you’ve shifted enough vibrationally that you now have access to a whole other range of thoughts and experiences. And, of course, you do not want to get stuck there in anger, but from anger you have a prayer of reaching frustration, where you can’t usually find yourself in the fresh breath of air that frustration is from despair or from fear; it’s too much of a vibrational jump.

If you’ll look back into your experience, you will begin to notice (and we don’t want you to look back too much, but just begin to viscerally feel around) that emotions are always coming in response to what you are giving your attention to. And with far less effort than it takes to learn QuickBooks on your computer, you’re going to discover that you can be in control of the way you feel, which means, you now have mastered the Art of Allowing. That means, no matter what’s going on around you, you have discovered a way to feel good and remain in Connection, and when you’ve discovered that—then Well-Being must follow you everywhere you go.

Esther talked to a friend who’s a magnificent counselor, (using many of the techniques that Abraham has offered over the years with her clients) and she says, “I tell my clients, ‘find the eye of your hurricane and stay there.’” And Esther said, “I sort of like that. When you think about all the things that are going on in the world that could be upsetting to you, but there is this calm here where I am. In other words, I don’t have to change the world; the world doesn’t have to change for me.” Do you know that is truly what the meaning of unconditional love is?

Most people, when they see conditions that make them feel bad—they just feel bad. And when they see something that makes them feel good—they just feel good. And then they conclude, “We’ve got to control the conditions.” And so, they make laws, and they get all kinds of patrollers, and they get all kinds of people that then try to enforce the laws because they believe that if they could just control these conditions, then they would never have to look at anything that upsets them again. But then you discover that the tsunami will come, and that there aren’t laws or rules, or armies, that can stop that. Or the hurricane will come, or the earthquake will come… In other words, there’s always going to be something that is going to challenge your idea that you can control circumstances.

You cannot control circumstances. You never intended to control circumstances. You intended to discover unconditional love. You intended to discover a way to feel good, no matter what, because you have the facility; you have the power; you have the ability to focus. You have the ability to choose where you focus, therefore, you have the ability to offer vibration deliberately, therefore, you have the ability to choose the way you feel. But it takes some practice.

As you practice, every day, something will happen and you will feel it viscerally in your body. Somebody says something or does something, or you see something on television, and then you’ve got to stop, right then, and you have to say, Nothing is more important than that I feel good. And, right now, I’m going to do my best to find the best-feeling thought that I can find.

Now, sometimes, you can change the subject. It’s easy to change the subject. Or, you could meditate; just quiet your mind; put your brain on pause; that makes you feel better immediately, too. But if there are circumstances that are hammering you, things that come up often: somebody in your experience that is there every day, or often, if there’s something happening in your experience that you consistently feel bad about, then you’ve got some work to do on this Emotional Scale.

Once you show yourself that that person, or that circumstance, does not have to change for you to move from fearful up to hopeful, or from despair up to anger to frustration… once you show yourself that nothing has to change, in terms of the action journey, for you to have real movement in the emotional journey, once you show yourself that, then watch what happens to your action journey. Once you shift; once you beat that drum; once it settles in; once you find the groove of that, once you are there, once you’ve shifted that belief, once you’ve modified that vibration (far less effort than you think), everything will begin to shift in your experience.

So, contrast causes you to offer rockets of desire. The desire is nowhere near where you’re vibrating. So, you’ve given birth to an idea of something you want that you are not a vibrational match to it. So, you do your best to find thoughts that feel closer and closer and closer to it. And when you begin to feel the elation that you will feel when that manifests, even before it manifests, now, it must manifest, and it must manifest fast.

That’s why we asked you that all-important question as we began. Do those unfulfilled desires please you?

And some of you lie and say yes, some of you say no. But we want you to work on getting to the place where you say, “Yes, I love this unfulfilled desire! I love knowing that there’s something in the offing for me. I love knowing that it’s out there percolating, and I love doing my work, which is, gradually, gently, consistently bringing myself into vibrational alignment with it.”

When it feels like the next logical step—then it comes right in. So your work, as you stand in the absence of something wanted, is to pretend it, to imagine it, to become so familiar with the essence of what it would feel like when it comes, that even though it hasn’t come, you still feel good. (You get this?) Even though my lover hasn’t come yet, I’m excited about the idea of my lover coming. I’m anticipating. I feel excited about it. But if I’m depressed, if I’m discouraged, if “all the good ones are taken,” then, it’s not the next logical step.

We think you heard that. Our work here is done.

Excerpted from Abraham-Hicks Workshop G-1-29-05, San Antonio, TX

Great video of hula dancer with fire. For those of you who do the belly dancing thing, I expect you’ll especially appreciate this. Or not, ya never know, but I put it out there as an optional view of earth and human experience . . .

Klara Hula Fire Dance

“The pause during which the entire world halts in its orbit. Your face embodies all the beauty of the world. Your lips, as crimson as a ripe fruit, are half open as if to express pain. A corpse’s smile. Here life and death shake hands. The chain that links thousands of past generations to the thousands to come has been meshed.”

- Edvard Munch