Superbroccoli'

The vegetable looks the same as normal broccoli but contains boosted levels of a health-giving nutrient.

.

Research suggests the plant chemical, glucoraphanin, may protect the body against heart disease and some types of cancer.

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The new broccoli, called Beneforte, contains two to three times more glucoraphanin than standard broccoli.

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It will be sold at Marks & Spencer stores from today and make an appearance on the shelves of other supermarkets in the  next few months.

.

Beneforte was developed by British scientists using conventional breeding techniques rather than genetic engineering.

.

Work on the project began after a wild broccoli variety was discovered in 1983 with naturally raised levels of glucoraphanin.

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The nutrient is converted in the gut into the bioactive compound sulphoraphane, which circulates in the bloodstream.

.

Evidence indicates that sulphoraphane has beneficial effects such as reducing chronic inflammation.

.

Stopping uncontrolled cell division associated with early-stage cancer.

.

It also boosts the body's antioxidants.

.

Compared with normal broccoli, eating Beneforte broccoli raises sulphoraphane levels two to four times.

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Broccoli is believed to protect against some cancers, especially bowel and prostate. 

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Studies have shown that men with broccoli-rich diets have a reduced risk of aggressive prostate cancer.

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Other research suggests broccoli can help prevent heart attacks and strokes by reducing inflammation and keeping blood flowing freely through arteries.

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Beneforte broccoli was developed at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) and John Innes Centre, both based in Norwich.

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Professor Richard Mithen, from the IFR, said: ''Our research has given new insights into the role of broccoli and other similar vegetables in promoting health.

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It has shown how this understanding can lead to the development of potentially more nutritious varieties of our familiar vegetables.

.

Now there will also be something brand new for consumers to eat as a result of the discoveries made.

Separate self

The extent to which we identify ourselves with our bodies, possessions, and the domain of our control is also the extent to which we are afraid of death.
.
I am speaking here not of the biological terror that drives any animal to struggle with a predator, 
.
But to an ambient dread that drives us to pretence and hiding.
.
More than any other crisis, death is the intruder whose mere approach crumbles the fortress of the separate self.
.
A personal brush with death, or even the passing of a loved one, connects us to a reality beyond the constructs of me and mine.
.
Death opens our hearts.
.
Death reminds us, with a clarity that trumps all logic, that only love is real.
.
And what is love, but a melting of the boundaries between self and other?
.
As many poets have understood, love too is a kind of death.
.
To a person identified with tribe, forest, and planet, the death of the body and all it controls is far less frightening.
.
Another way to describe such a person is that he or she is in love with the world.
.
Love is antidote to fear of death.
.
Because it expands one's boundaries beyond what can be lost.
.
Conversely, fear of death blocks love by shutting us in and making us small.
.
And fear of death is built into our ideology.
.
The self-definition implicit in objectivist science.
.
Money and property simply enforce this self-definition.
.
They are concrete manifestations of the separate self. 
.
The self that is afraid of death and closed to love.
.
Money, in its present form, is anti-love.
.
But it is not the root of all evil. 
.
Just another expression of separation.
.
Another piece of the puzzle.
.
Other systems of money are possible that have the opposite effect of our present currency,
.
Structurally discouraging the accumulation of me and mine.

.
Charles Eisentstein

Solar time

When the largest flare in four years erupted from the sun Feb. 14, sky watchers across the Northern Hemisphere braced themselves for a geomagnetic storm. 

Space weather experts predicted that jets of charged particles smacking into the Earth’s magnetic field could disrupt navigation and communication systems, and spark a bonus of bright northern lights dancing across the ionosphere.

Instead, nothing much happened.

“There were some nice displays of aurora, but you had to live in Finland, northern Canada or Alaska to see them,” said Joe Kunches, a forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. 

“This one was the lowest storm category that we even pay any attention to.”

The storm was so weak because the flare’s magnetic field happened to be aligned parallel to the Earth’s. 

When the sun sends a mass of hot plasma hurtling toward the planet in a coronal mass ejection, the plasma is imprinted with its own magnetic field separate from the sun’s. 

Astronomers can’t predict the direction of the plasma’s magnetic field until the burst hits Earth.

If the plasma’s magnetic field is parallel to the Earth’s, the incoming charged particles are effectively blocked from entering Earth’s magnetosphere. 

An identical flare with a perpendicular magnetic field would have triggered a much stronger storm.

“If the magnetic fields are parallel, then the shields are up. 

We are well protected,” said space weather expert Juha-Pekka Luntama of the European Space Agency Feb. 19 at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC.

But next time we might not be as lucky with alignment, and we can expect up to 1,700 more storms like last week’s in the coming months as the sun wakes back up.

NOAA ranks geomagnetic storms on a scale from G1, minor storms that spark auroras in Michigan and Maine, to G5, extreme storms that can shut down power grids and cause northern lights as far south as Florida. 

The ranking is based on how much more active the local magnetic field is than a normal, quiet day.

The Feb. 14 storm turned out to be a G1, meaning “it wasn’t that big a deal,” Kunches said.

The storm was mostly notable for being the first of the new solar cycle, Kunches said. 

The sun goes through periods of relative violence and calm every 11 years or so. 

This last solar minimum was longer and quieter than astronomers expected. 

Many predict that the ensuing solar maximum, when magnetic activity on the sun will cause more frequent and severe flares, will also be relatively serene.

But space-weather experts are more nervous about this solar maximum than ever before. 

Since the last solar maximum in 2000, society has grown more dependent on systems that can be knocked out by a strong solar flare.

“Things have changed a lot since 2000,” Tom Bogdan, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told reporters Feb. 19 at AAAS. 

“What’s at stake are the advanced technologies that underlie our lives.”

A strong flare would send ultraviolet and X-ray radiation to the sunlit side of the Earth, ionizing the upper atmosphere and potentially shutting down GPS satellites. 

Losing GPS would cause chaos in more than just car navigation systems, Bogdan said.

“GPS is involved in everything we do,” he said, including financial transactions. 

Prices fluctuate so quickly that traders need a time stamp accurate to a millionth of a second every time they buy or sell something. 

Every time you swipe your credit card at the gas station or buy a bag of oranges, Bogdan said, it goes through a GPS satellite.

Ten to 20 minutes after the flare, a burst of high-energy protons would enter the Earth’s magnetic field at the poles, causing processing errors in other satellites.

About half an hour later, the hot cloud of plasma that the sun spit out with the flare would bump into the Earth’s magnetic field. 

If it’s strong enough, the plasma’s magnetic field can induce currents in electric transmission lines, which could cause widespread blackouts. 

The most powerful solar flare in recorded history, the Carrington flare in September 1859, sent currents through telegraph wires and even set a few buildings on fire.

Bogdan noted that that storm and the next-strongest storm in 1921 both happened during particularly weak solar cycles.

Still, he said, “don’t panic.” 

Many satellites and transmission lines are already fitted with shields to prevent the worst of the damage from a strong flare. 

Others can be shut down preemptively. 

Sun-observing satellites give space weather experts about 20 hours to come up with a plan to deal with an impending storm, during which NOAA sends out detailed alerts.

“This recent solar flare really illustrates that we need to pay attention to space weather,” said NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco at the AAAS meeting. 

“The watchword is, predict and prepare.”

Image: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

Ah science!

Galileo's excision of God from the world of matter mirrored the even more audacious banishment of subjective experiences from the domain of rigorous intellectual exploration.

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Not only their knowability was questioned, but even their reality.
.
Science is the study of reality
.
What is not measurable is not a valid subject of science.
.
Therefore what is not measurable is not real.
.
A century later, David Hume took up this position with great enthusiasm:
.
Let us ask,
.
Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?
.
No.
.
Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?
.
No.
.
Commit it then to the flames; for it contains nothing but sophistry and illusion.
.
Ironic indeed, then, is the present state of science,
.
In which once again vast areas of inquiry are off-limits.
.
In which experimental results that contradict orthodoxy are excluded from publication.
.
In which knowledge is restricted to those initiated into the language of its abstruse texts.
.
In which whole fields wallow in fruitless hyperspecialization.
.
In which the public can only await the pronouncements of this new quasi-ecclesiastical hierarchy.
.
Holder of the keys to the gates of knowledge.
.
Can we say that we have not replicated the old world within the new?
.
Upon the Scientific Method, which freed thought from the institutionalized, authoritarian superstition of the Middle Ages.
.
We have built yet a new orthodoxy.
.
More totalitarian, if more subtle, than the first.
.
Charles Eisenstein

One liners

Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.
.
When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane and
.
going the wrong way.
.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you
.
tried.
.
A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
.
it.
.
For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.
.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks
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Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with.
.
No one is listening until you make a mistake.
.
Success always occurs in private and failure in full view.
.
The hardness of butter is directly proportional to the softness
.
of the bread.
.
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the
.
ability to reach it.
.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many
.
is research.
.
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your
.
principles.
.
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.
.
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
.
Two wrongs are only the beginning.
.
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
.
The sooner you fall behind the more time you'll have to catch
.
up.
.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
.
Change is inevitable except from vending machines.
.
Get a new car for your spouse - it'll be a great trade!
.
Plan to be spontaneous - tomorrow.
.
Always try to be modest and be proud of it!
.
If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
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How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand...
.
Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener.
.
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you.

Artificial leaf moves two steps closer to reality

Two independent research teams report today in Science that they’ve taken key strides toward 
harnessing the energy in sunlight to synthesize chemical fuels. 
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If the new work can be improved, scientists could utilize Earth’s most abundant source of renewable energy to power everything from industrial plants to cars and trucks without generating additional greenhouse gases.
.
Today, humans consume an average of 15 trillion watts of power, 85% of which comes from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas. 
.
That massive fossil fuel consumption produces some nasty side effects, including climate change, acidified oceans, and oil spills. 
.
These problems are likely to grow far worse in coming years, as worldwide energy use is expected to at least double by 2050
.
Renewable power sources, such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines, aim to fill this demand, and they are making steady progress at providing electricity at ever cheaper costs. 
.
But electricity has a key drawback as an energy carrier. 
.
It’s difficult to store in large quantities, which means it can’t be used for most heavy industry and transportation applications, such as flying planes or driving heavy trucks. 
.
So researchers have long sought to use the energy in sunlight to generate energy-rich chemical fuels, such as hydrogen gas, methane, and gasoline, that can be burned anytime anywhere. 
.
And though they have demonstrated that this goal is possible, the means for doing so have been inefficient and expensive.
.
That’s where the new advances come in. 
.
In the first, researchers led by Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, report that they've created an artificial leaf from cheap, abundant materials that splits water into molecular hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen (O₂), somewhat similar to the way plants carry out the first step in photosynthesis. 
.
The leaf consists of a thin, flat, three-layered silicon solar cell with catalysts bonded to both faces of the silicon. 
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When placed in a beaker of water and exposed to sunlight, silicon absorbs photons of sunlight, generating electrons with enough energy to conduct through the silicon
.
The process leaves behind positively charged electron vacancies called “holes” that can also move through the material. 
.
The holes migrate to a cobalt-containing catalyst painted on one face of the silicon cell, where they strip electrons from water molecules, breaking them into hydrogen ions (H+), and oxygen atoms. 
.
The catalyst then knits pairs of oxygens together to make O₂. 
.
Meanwhile, the H+ ions migrate to another catalyst on the opposite face of the silicon cell, where they combine with conducting electrons to make molecules of H₂. 
.
In principle, the H₂ can then be stored and either burned or run through a fuel cell to generate electricity
.
In the second study, a team led by chemists Richard Masel of Dioxide Materials in Champaign, Illinois, and Paul Kenis of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, report that they’ve come up with a more energy-efficient approach to converting carbon Dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxied (CO), the first step to making a hydrocarbon fuel. 
.
Other researchers have worked for decades to devise catalysts and the right reaction conditions to carry out this conversion. 
.
But converting CO₂ to CO has always required applying large electrical voltages to CO₂ to make the change. 
.
That excess voltage is an energy loss, meaning it takes far more energy to make the CO than it can store in its chemical bonds.
.
But Masel, Kenis, and colleagues found that when they use a type of solvent for CO₂ in their setup called an ionic liquid, it reduces the extra voltage needed approximately 10-fold. 
.
Ionic liquids are liquid salts that are adept at stabilizing compounds such as CO₂ when they are given an extra negative charge, the first step in converting CO₂ to CO. 
.
And the Illinois researchers suspect that this added stability reduces the need for applying an external charge to do the job.
.
These papers are nice advances, says Daniel DuBois, a chemist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, who works on catalysts for both splitting water and re-energizing CO₂. 
.
But he cautions that neither solves all of their respective issues. 
.
The oxygen-forming catalyst in the artificial leaf, for example, remains slow, DuBois says. 
.
And the efficiency of the overall leaf is only 4.7% at most, and just 2.3% in its most simplest design. 
.
The catalyst in the CO₂ system is even slower. 
.
But DuBois says that because other researchers in the field now have a good examples of systems that work, they can now focus on designing improved catalysts to speed them up.
.
By Robert F. Service - Science Now

Separation

Separation is what defines modern man.

A view of himself as separate and distinct from others.

Making all relationships even the most intimate as separate or distinct from who we are

ourselves.

Relationships are groupings of discrete individuals.

This is separation of a high order.

Because relationships define who we are.

With life.

With others.

And by defining them all as separate from who we are we diminish ourselves.

Simply we reduce everything to you and me, nothing is us on deeper levels.

Under the delusion of the discrete and separate self, we see our relationships as extrinsic to who we are on the deepest level.
.
We see relationships as associations of discrete individuals.

But in fact, our relationships—with other people and all life—define who we are
.
And by impoverishing these relationships we diminish ourselves. 
.
We are our relationships.
.
Charles Eisenstein

Flexible working

The option
.
For those that like the idea of flexible working there are plenty of options: part-time; flexi-time; job sharing; annualised hours; compressed hours; staggered hours and homeworking. 
.
In addition there are variations on these themes.

.
Such as term-time working and school hours working. 
.
It all comes down to the relationship with the boss and how amenable they are to your demands.
.
Going part-time means simply working less hours
.
While flexi-time enables you to choose your hours, although there's usually a core period during which you are expected to work. 
.
Job sharing, meanwhile, sees you combining with someone else to do a job designed for one person. 
.
For example, each of you doing two-and-a- half days a week
.
Annualised means your hours will be worked out over a year with the normal practice being a set number of shifts to which you add your own agreed hours. 
.
A compressed arrangement will see you working the same amount of hours but in a few days.
.
While staggered involves having different starting and finishing times for employees in the same workplace.
.
Finally there is homeworking, which does away with the commute.
.
And the expense of having an employee in the office.
.
As their job is done from the comfort of their own house. 
.
The hours spent dedicated to company business – or amount of work needed to be finished – will be down to an agreement struck with the boss.
.
Your entitlement
.
The good news is that anyone can ask their employer for flexible working arrangements and the law also provides a statutory right to make this request if you meet certain criteria.
.
Such as having worked for the same firm for 26 continuous weeks
.
If this is the case they can ask if, for example, they have parental responsibility for a child under 17-years-old (or a disabled child under 18 that receives Disability Living Allowance).
.
Or they act as a carer for a relative.
.
Or an adult that's unrelated but who lives at the same address.
.
However, although the employer must seriously consider the application, they can decline it where there is a legitimate business ground.
.
A good suggestion is anyone wanting to change their hours puts themselves into the manager's shoes and come up with a viable solution.
.
Don't just say you want to change hours as all you're doing then is giving your manager a problem.
.
Try to understand what your job means to the organisation. 
.
You know your job better than anyone else, and so are best placed to see a way of doing it differently.
.
Work for yourself
.
Of course, the ultimate flexibility is being your own boss. 
.
On the face of it you can set your own hours, decide how much to pay yourself and give yourself bonus days off when the sun is shining.
.
But it's certainly not stress-free.
.
As well as potentially being the passport to a more lucrative and enjoyable way of life, starting your own business can be one of the riskiest and stressful moves you can ever make.
.
And is likely to require even more hours being put in until it's properly up and running.
.
Other considerations
.
For all these flexible options there are financial issues to consider. 
.
For example, if their new flexible working arrangement reduces the hours worked it will affect their income and probably their pension benefits.
.
People need to consider what impact the new working arrangement will have on their finances in the short and the long term.
.
People should do a budgeting exercise to see the true impact of any changes because it might change their ability to save for school fees
.
University costs or deposits for a house move.
.
Over the longer-term the main issue will be their pension. 
.
It is important that people take into account what reduced hours might mean for their pension benefits. 
.
It might mean that working less now will result in having to work later in life.
.
Even if the finances are negatively affected, it is still important to balance this against the positive reasons for wanting a more flexible working arrangement.
.
Such as getting to spend more quality time with your children and improving your quality of life
.
There are, of course, other pros and cons of striking the perfect work-life balance. 
.
It's also good to keep family life separate but this isn't always possible. 
.
When the smartphone pings at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon and it takes all the willpower in the world not to go and check it in case it's something interesting!
.
Of course there are other pros and cons however the main thing is to be honest with yourself.
.
Do not get to forty something saying I wish I had done this or that
.
You did or you didn't.
.
That was you, your life that was.
.
What will you do?