Religious Devotion = Less Pain

Da Vinci's "Lady With An Ermine"

Can religion really improve our resistance to pain? A research study announced today by a team from Oxford University suggests so:

New research by a group of scientists, philosophers and psychologists from the University of Oxford, to be published in the next edition of the journal Pain1, reveals, for the first time, that religion-associated pain resistance is linked to the activation of the brain right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), an area associated with both cognitive down-regulation of pain and reassessment of the emotional meaning of an experience – for example by giving a neutral or even positive meaning to a noxious experience, and so making it much easier to cope with.

The End Of Salt?

Salt crystals. Pic: Michigan College of Engineering.

Excuse me, could you pass the seaweed please?

High salt levels in processed food could be a thing of the past, thanks to new research which has found that a certain type of seaweed can be used as a natural, health boosting alternative that doesn’t affect the taste or adversely affect the shelf life of the food.

Blue Whale In Irish Waters, Second Sighting in 100 years.

Photo: The Irish Sun

Amidst all the doom and gloom about environmental destruction and species extinction it was great to read that a blue whale has been photographed for the first time in Irish waters.

According to Yahoo! News:

The sighting of the elusive creature, which is so big its heart is the size of a small car and a child could swim in its arteries, is believed to have global significance for a species thought nearly extinct in the 1960s.

But amateur whale-watcher Ivan O’Kelly did not realise what he had snapped off the Co Kerry coast until he sent the pictures to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG).

Bee Watch VI: Bees Worth €153bn To World Food Production

Hey buddy, can you spare a hive?

The complete loss of insect pollinators, “particularly honey bees and wild bees” would not lead to the catastrophic disappearing of world agrioculture, according to research published today in the journal Ecological Ethics.

Whjile the French and German researchers found that the worldwide economic value of the pollination services provided by insect pollinators, bees mainly, was €153 billion in 2005 –9.5% of the total value of the world agricultural food production, there’s no need to panic.

And while “pollinator disappearance” as they call it, would translate into a consumer surplus loss estimated between €190 to €310 billion, with fruit, vegetable and edible oil crops being affected most, we could continue producing food quite well were all the little bees to perish.   

Five Asides 2

Stephen Colbert

1. Stephen Colbert’s Digitized DNA To Be Sent Into Space