Category: Body & Mind

Try Living Without Oil Before You Have To

Peak oil is coming, probably soon than you think. We sort of all know this, but we never really talk about it. What are we going to do when it actually happens? Will we be caught totally unawares?

A new alternate reality game (read: online story-driven community-based game) aims to make people think about this unthinkable topic. World Without Oil is being funded by a number of media companies and being produced by a team of experienced game makers. Their goal? To simulate a global oil shock, applying “collective intelligence” to the problem in advance, and create a record that can help people anticipate the future. The means to accomplish all this is player-contributed blogs, videos, etc.

Tell us your story. Fuel prices are sky high and the ripple effects are pulling at the seams of our society. Everyone’s life has taken a hit – but how much of a hit are you taking? How much pain are you in? No one will know if you don’t add your voice to the collective shout. And who knows? If enough people speak up, maybe the force of collective truth will help prevent this crisis from ever happening again.

For more information, start at the official homepage.

Dirt Fights Cancer

treeThe fight against cancer has found some support from something that we stomp over: dirt. I love ‘discoveries’ like this because I hope it’ll make people aware of how important biodiversity is.

The bark of certain yew trees can yield a medicine that fights cancer. Now scientists find the dirt that yew trees grow in can supply the drug as well, suggesting a new way to commercially harvest the medicine.

Scientists originally isolated the drug paclitaxel—now commonly known as Taxol—in 1967 from the bark of Pacific yew trees (Taxus brevifolia) in a forest near the Mount St. Helens in Washington. This yew also yields related compounds known as taxanes that can be converted to paclitaxel. Research since then has revealed other yew species generate paclitaxel and taxanes as well, as do some fungi and certain hazelnut varieties

Irish Smoking Ban Helps Lungs

In Ireland they implemented a smoking ban in March 2004 and researchers have noted a marked increase in air quality as a result. The research reports that an all out smoking ban in the workplace is wonderfully successful in reducing exposure to harmful particles, and, or course carcinogens. This Irish study supports previous research.

The workers were all given lung function tests before the ban came in and a year later….The bar-workers said they were exposed to around 40 hours per week before the ban came in, falling to 25 minutes afterwards – a 99% decrease in exposure.

And lung function tests improved dramatically in non-smoking barmen post-ban.

Billboards Banned in São Paulo

no adsThe Brazilain city of Ṣo Paulo has been praised by many with their recent law that dictates that limits of outdoor advertising Рa billboard ban. To get an idea of what a city looks like without ugly advertising check out these images.

City planners, architects and environmental advocates have argued enthusiastically that the prohibition, through a new “clean city” law, brings São Paulo a welcome step closer to an imagined urban ideal.

The law is “a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash,” Roberto Pompeu de Toledo, a columnist and author of a history of São Paulo, wrote in the weekly newsmagazine Veja. “For once in life, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost.”

Have A Heart! And Possibly Two Kidneys…….

I’ve recently been thinking about getting that organ donor sticker thingie added to my health card. Especially since I just read an article that spoke a bit about the subject. Did you know that when you die your old body could save up to seven lives??? Also, many people are afraid that if they are an organ or tissue donor that this means that they will be treated less fairly at the hospital because they are seen more as potential donors than as patients deserving the best care. Not true! The doctors that care for us and the organ donor guys are usually two separate teams of people. So no doc in their right mind is going to let you die because they want your heart and possibly both kidneys. You will also not end up in a crazy scientists lab experiment and become some crazy frankenstein of organs. Although that could also be kinda cool.

Perhaps the idea sounds a tad morbid, but if my own passing could in turn save others lives then I think thats a pretty cool thing. With this form I vow to give up my guts for a good cause. I can even choose which ones I don’t feel like giving away. Although at that point at can’t see myself being too picky.