[Timo]

Ahhhhhhhh! Waking up, and reading the commentary in this place is such an up-beat way to start the day! I feel ready to embrace the world in a great big, warm hug!

[dohboi]

In the ancient Indian context, the boundaries between religion, philosophy and even science are a bit more blurred than in most of the modern West. Their linguistic science was in some ways far beyond its Western counterpart till fairly recently, even though it developed largely to help understand and preserve sacred texts.

Back to life...besides the imperative to save it, we also desperately need to gain better understanding of it, better than the paltry knowledge we have even of the life right beneath our feet: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/is_climate ... risk/2977/

In 1994, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory moved soil from moist, high-altitude sites to warmer and drier places lower in altitude, and vice versa. In 2011, they returned to the sites and looked again at the soil microbes and found that they had done little to adapt functionally to their new home. That’s a bad sign, experts say, for a world convulsed by a changing climate.

“These microbes have somehow lost the capacity to adapt to the new conditions,” said Vanessa Bailey, one of the authors of the study, published this month in PLOS One. That not what scientists anticipated, and it “calls into question the resilience of the overall environment to climate change,” she said. “Soil is the major buffer for environmental changes, and the microbial community is the basis for that resilience.”

Yet it is far more important, for microbes run the world. They are key players that perpetuate life on the planet, provide numerous ecosystem services, and serve as a major bulwark against environmental changes.

As vital as they are, we are only beginning to understand microbes and the role they play in the world’s ecosystems. The problem is that these fungi, archaea, and bacteria are so small that in a gram of soil (about a teaspoon), there are a billion or so, with many thousands of species. Perhaps 10 percent of the species are known. The Lilliputian communities that these microorganisms create are enormously complex, and their functions difficult to tease out. But in the last decade, new tools have been developed that have begun to change the research game.

“Soil was a black box,” said Janet Jansson, chief scientist for Biology Earth and Biological Sciences at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and president of the International Society for Microbial Ecology. “I have been working in microbial ecology for decades, and it has been difficult, if not impossible, to study them. Now we have these new molecular processes, and suddenly the whole field is exploding.”

There is a Manhattan Project-like urgency to sussing out these secrets. A paper in the journal Science last year called for a Unified Microbiome Initiative, and experts have held a series of meetings about it at the White House. The Earth Microbiome Project is a massive global effort to collect samples of microbial communities from thousands of ecosystems around the world. Meanwhile, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative got underway in 2011 — one-third of the world’s biodiversity lives beneath our feet — and it’s focused on preserving the services that healthy soil ecosystems provide, such as a place for plants to grow, the breakdown of waste, and the natural filtration of water. The TerraGenome Project is sequencing the metagenome of soil microbes.

[shortonoil]

Does anyone remember the "Far Side" cartoon,

"God as a Child tries to make a Chicken"?

It would fit perfectly into this conversation!

[efarmer]

kiwichick,
I am sometimes on good terms with her and other times not. God is a busy gal.
My personal theory is that she likes the carbon because she knows if given enough
time and pressure, it can become the diamond form of the substance. She also
controls lightning and is a good shot. Being cheap, and often running foul of her
Commandments, I keep my ass indoors whenever it is inclement.

[dohboi]

short, is that the first one here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/350788258448200063/

ef...lol

[americandream]

In the ancient Indian context, the boundaries between religion, philosophy and even science are a bit more blurred than in most of the modern West.

[/quote]

Not quite as is evident in the irrational tendencies awash across the West.

Science is simply a more nuanced/rigorous cultural practice of record keeping, something we have been doing going back to early history. The fact that it has emerged and is now establishing itself by degree in all capitalist economies should alert us to the fact that it will accompany the spread in globalisation as capital embraces all of the worlds cultures, including Indians (of the sub-continental as well as American indigenous kind),

There is nothing more annoying than addle headed liberals who exhibit a shockingly elitist notion of history.

[Hawkcreek]

If you believe in some kind of God, you have to have faith, because religions don't generally do any rational hypothesizing, or logic testing of their religions.
However, many reputable scientists are being drawn to the conclusion that we live in a virtual reality universe. I, for one, agree with them.
The biggest question in my mind is - is the observer that lives in my mind, the same one that lives in all other minds.
I believe we are all one and the same observer. The virtual universe exists just to let he/she/it, experience things.
Lots of links out there if you care to look. Tom Campbell has some good arguments.

[SeaGypsy]

In the ancient Indian context, the boundaries between religion, philosophy and even science are a bit more blurred than in most of the modern West. Their linguistic science was in some ways far beyond its Western counterpart till fairly recently, even though it developed largely to help understand and preserve sacred texts.

Back to life...besides the imperative to save it, we also desperately need to gain better understanding of it, better than the paltry knowledge we have even of the life right beneath our feet: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/is_climate ... risk/2977/

In 1994, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory moved soil from moist, high-altitude sites to warmer and drier places lower in altitude, and vice versa. In 2011, they returned to the sites and looked again at the soil microbes and found that they had done little to adapt functionally to their new home. That’s a bad sign, experts say, for a world convulsed by a changing climate.

“These microbes have somehow lost the capacity to adapt to the new conditions,” said Vanessa Bailey, one of the authors of the study, published this month in PLOS One. That not what scientists anticipated, and it “calls into question the resilience of the overall environment to climate change,” she said. “Soil is the major buffer for environmental changes, and the microbial community is the basis for that resilience.”

Yet it is far more important, for microbes run the world. They are key players that perpetuate life on the planet, provide numerous ecosystem services, and serve as a major bulwark against environmental changes.

As vital as they are, we are only beginning to understand microbes and the role they play in the world’s ecosystems. The problem is that these fungi, archaea, and bacteria are so small that in a gram of soil (about a teaspoon), there are a billion or so, with many thousands of species. Perhaps 10 percent of the species are known. The Lilliputian communities that these microorganisms create are enormously complex, and their functions difficult to tease out. But in the last decade, new tools have been developed that have begun to change the research game.

“Soil was a black box,” said Janet Jansson, chief scientist for Biology Earth and Biological Sciences at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and president of the International Society for Microbial Ecology. “I have been working in microbial ecology for decades, and it has been difficult, if not impossible, to study them. Now we have these new molecular processes, and suddenly the whole field is exploding.”

There is a Manhattan Project-like urgency to sussing out these secrets. A paper in the journal Science last year called for a Unified Microbiome Initiative, and experts have held a series of meetings about it at the White House. The Earth Microbiome Project is a massive global effort to collect samples of microbial communities from thousands of ecosystems around the world. Meanwhile, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative got underway in 2011 — one-third of the world’s biodiversity lives beneath our feet — and it’s focused on preserving the services that healthy soil ecosystems provide, such as a place for plants to grow, the breakdown of waste, and the natural filtration of water. The TerraGenome Project is sequencing the metagenome of soil microbes.

Yes someone else knows something about Vedic science. The generalization by Hawk is wrong. The Vedas contain a great deal of rational science, often blended with esoterica, not easy to explain to the uninitiated. I spent years hanging with Hindus, long enough to grok that our language is barely adequate.

[dohboi]

"They say prayer has the power to heal
So pray for me mother...

I'm trying to love my neighbor,
and do good to others,

But oh mother,
things ain't goin' well...

in the last out back

at the world's end..."

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/U_9sXbde6Ms/

[Newfie]

Some while back I had proposed a different way of looking at humanities role or "purpose" if you will. Somewhat along these lines. A different view point.

Entropy is a integral part of nature, much as gravity. If you aw thropomorphise a bit....Water builds valleys to assist gravity in reducing the potential energy of water. It increases entropy. Humans build stuff because the process releases energy stored in carbon (uraninium, etc) to assist Nature in reducing stored energy, it increases entropy. Nature designed humanity to get at hard to reduce energy stores.

This article kind of goes in that direction finding some evidence that Nature has a tendency to build complex mechanisms which increase entropy.

Seems I was right all along!

Just joking guys, don't get your panties in a bunch.

[SeaGypsy]

Could be a joke or a PC disclaimer? Forgetting about being PC for a minute this is a very serious proposition.

In the Vedic science, the three essential principles cause everything- creation (Vishnu) maintenance (Brahma) & destruction (Shiva). In humans these divine forces act through three modes of consciousness- altruism (goodness), passion (ego), & ignorance (base instinct). Vedic scripture places this earth as a 'middle' planet, where each of us as eternal spirit souls have been cast through our desire, our karma. This planet is under the primary domain of Shiva- the destroyer, & is in the fairly early stages of a very long period known as 'Kali Yuga'- an age of male aggression posing as female sexuality, lust, greed, envy, degradation & decadence.

[efarmer]

Seagypsy,
I am getting too old for Vishnu but like most older guys I need a bunch of Brahma, so I keep praying for Brahma, Brahma, Brahma, but all she (God) delivers to me is jumbo cartons of Shiva. Any hints you would provide would be most welcome, also any exercises to wax my Brahma and wane my Shiva would be the berries as well. I would even attempt the impossible, like translating some of these forum posts for clarity and brevity or something purely physical like when Hercules diverted the river to clean out the stables. In my Catholic upbringing one has to smoke perhaps one turd in purgatory to get to the good, but in this belief system every day my doorbell rings, and I get all excited and ready for Brahma, but nope, I get another big ass box of Shiva..

This leads me to believe I am not doing anything wrong, but rather instead that this is just the way things are. If you have more game, throw EF a bone Seagypsy.
P.S. If anyone is short on Shiva, I have Type 0 Shiva, and I am a sharing sort of person.

[shortonoil]

short, is that the first one here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/350788258448200063/ 

ef...lol

That's the one. I had it posted on the wall of my study for years. It was there to remind me not to get over confident in my knowledge. Things don't always work out like we plan; even for the best of us. Get a grip; most of what we know is probably wrong!

[shortonoil]

"Humans build stuff because the process releases energy stored in carbon (uraninium, etc) to assist Nature in reducing stored energy, it increases entropy. Nature designed humanity to get at hard to reduce energy stores."

Guess what? She probably isn't going to need us much longer!

[dohboi]

"Type 0 Shiva" put me in mind of one of my favorite stories from the Mahabharata:

A yogi--living only on the greens around his hut and practicing extreme austerities and therefore acquiring great power--one day accidently cut his finger, and the blood that dripped out of it was green. He was so overjoyed as this propitious sign that he lept up and started to dance wildly and ecstatically. But he didn't realize that he had accrued so much power that his ecstatic dance through the entire universe into a chaotic frenzy. All the gods were quite distressed, so they send Shiva to go deal with the yogi. Shiva approached the holy man and asked why he was dancing so wildly. When the yogi told him about his green blood, Shiva said, "Oh, that's not such a trick. Look at this."

And when Shiva pricked his finger, ash poured forth.

(That's from memory so I might have missed a detail or two, but something about that story always stuck with me.)

[Hawkcreek]

Yes someone else knows something about Vedic science. The generalization by Hawk is wrong. The Vedas contain a great deal of rational science, often blended with esoterica, not easy to explain to the uninitiated. I spent years hanging with Hindus, long enough to grok that our language is barely adequate.

All just part of the program. Go in peace, brother.

[SeaGypsy]

Seagypsy,
I am getting too old for Vishnu but like most older guys I need a bunch of Brahma, so I keep praying for Brahma, Brahma, Brahma, but all she (God) delivers to me is jumbo cartons of Shiva. Any hints you would provide would be most welcome, also any exercises to wax my Brahma and wane my Shiva would be the berries as well. I would even attempt the impossible, like translating some of these forum posts for clarity and brevity or something purely physical like when Hercules diverted the river to clean out the stables. In my Catholic upbringing one has to smoke perhaps one turd in purgatory to get to the good, but in this belief system every day my doorbell rings, and I get all excited and ready for Brahma, but nope, I get another big ass box of Shiva..

This leads me to believe I am not doing anything wrong, but rather instead that this is just the way things are. If you have more game, throw EF a bone Seagypsy.
P.S. If anyone is short on Shiva, I have Type 0 Shiva, and I am a sharing sort of person.

The funny thing about Brahma, he doesn't come in a box. He is so large that his breath contains entire multiple universes. (A 5000 year old concept in Sanskrit, modern science is still getting over the One Big Bang theory). To have more Brahma, one must want less, sleep & meditate more, think less, breath more. He also offers optional mergence for those tired of their dratted individual eternality, but both Siva & Visnu are against this, Siva because he enjoys playing with us, making us die over & over, Visnu because he loves us & will wait eternity for us to figure out what that means.

[efarmer]

Dohboi,
I enjoyed the story about Shiva showing everyone his ash. My mother in law used to do this all the time as well, and she was a great destroyer too, but played in the little clubs because she didn't have the following and cred to work the big joints like Shiva.

I am not sure yet why life exists, or even if it is a better play on thermal entropy than you can conjure up with just dumb elements, but when you find yourself to be alive, as I oftentimes do, it is very comforting to ponder why life exists and what it means.

I trust President Trump will address this once he fires all the losers and finds that with everything fixed and running nominally fine, he has a shitload of burn time.

[Newfie]

"Humans build stuff because the process releases energy stored in carbon (uraninium, etc) to assist Nature in reducing stored energy, it increases entropy. Nature designed humanity to get at hard to reduce energy stores."

Guess what? She probably isn't going to need us much longer!

I quite agree.

[cipi604]

It was already well known life defies entropy.