SPOTLESS SUNS

On Tuesday April 2, NASA announced that the sun has plunged into the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Sunspots have all but vanished and consequently the sun has become very quiet. In 2008, the sun had no spots 73% of the time, a 95-year low. In 2009, sunspots are even more scarce, with the "spotless rate" jumping to 87%. We are currently experiencing a stretch of 25 continuous days uninterrupted by sunspots--and there's no end in sight.This is a big event, but it is not unprecedented. Similarly deep solar minima were common in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and each time the sun recovered with a fairly robust solar maximum. That's probably what will happen in the present case, although no one can say for sure. This is the first deep solar minimum of the Space Age, and the first one we have been able to observe using modern technology. Is it like others of the past? Or does this solar minimum have its own unique characteristics that we will discover for the first time as the cycle unfolds? These questions are at the cutting edge of solar physics.You can monitor the progress of solar minimum with a new "Spotless Days Counter" on spaceweather.com. Instead of counting sunspots, we're counting no sunspots. Daily updated totals tell you how many spotless days there have been in a row, in this year, and in the entire solar cycle. Comparisons to historical benchmarks put it all in perspective. Visit http://spaceweather.com for data.

more quaking

A 4.5 magnitude earthquake has been felt in Melbourne and eastern Victoria, 12 days after a similar tremor.
The tremor occurred about 5km northeast of Korumburra, 100km southeast of Melbourne, at 4.28pm (AEDT) on Wednesday.
The epicentre is in the same area of an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter scale which hit on March 6.
The Seismology Research Centre said an aftershock sequence is expected to continue.
There have been no reports of damage and it is unlikely an earthquake of this magnitude and depth will cause any significant damage, the centre's website said.

Roo crash

A kangaroo has crashed through the bedroom window of a Canberra family's home before terrorising its unsuspecting occupants.The family, from the suburb of Garran in Canberra's south, were awoken in the early hours of Sunday when their pet dog began barking from the garden.Moments later, a kangaroo burst through a three metre high window of the house's master bedroom and onto the bed where Beat Ettlin, his partner Verity Beman and their nine-year-old daughter Beatrix lay."My initial thought when I was half awake was: it's a lunatic ninja coming through the window," Mr Ettlin told The Associated Press."It seems about as likely as a kangaroo breaking in."While the family took refuge under the blankets, the injured animal proceeded to jump on top of them, gouging holes in the furniture and smearing blood all over the walls.The next thing Mr Ettlin heard was his 10-year-old son Leighton screaming from his bed: "There's a 'roo in my room!'""I thought, this can be really dangerous for the whole family now," the 42-year-old said.A chef, originally from the Swiss city of Stans, Mr Ettlin followed the thrashing and bleeding two metre tall marsupial and wrestled it into a headlock before dragging it down the hallway and out the front door.Left wearing just his shredded underpants and with scratch marks on his leg and buttocks, Mr Ettlin described himself as "lucky"."I had just my Bonds undies on. I felt vulnerable," he said.As quickly as it had come, the kangaroo vanished into a nearby reserve and the family reported the intrusion to police and wildlife authorities.
Ms Beman praised her husband's courage and said she didn't know many men who would go head-to-head with a kangaroo."I think he's a hero, a hero in Bonds undies," she said.

Quaking Melbourne

Victoria's east has been rocked by an earth tremor,on 6/3/09 in the evening with residents reporting Melbourne buildings shaking across the metropolitan area.Geoscience Australia, which monitors earthquake activity, said the tremor measured magnitude 4.6 on the Richter scale , with the epicentre at Korumburra, about 90 kilometres south-east of Melbourne .The quake happened just before 9:00pm AEDT, and while there were no reports of injury, 000, media outlets and the Bureau of Meteorology were flooded with calls from people wanting to know what had happened.John Schneider, from Geoscience Australia, says the the region has not seen an earthquake of that magnitude in over a decade."The last earthquake of any significant size in that area was the magnitude 5 earthquake at Thomson Reservoir in 1996," he said.Terry Ryan from the Bureau of Meteorology says the quake was felt far from its epicentre."Mainly out to the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and places like Pakenham, Wonthaggi, towards Phillip Island ... have reported more sort of movement than the west," he said.Allan Griggs, from the State Emergency Service (SES), says 10 crews were sent to respond to calls for help with minor property damage."There's no reports of injury to the SES, however we have received approximately 30 calls for assistance across the state this evening," he said."Most of the calls have come from the Melbourne metropolitan area ... crews are now out just assessing the damage to these properties."It is reported as minor damage at this stage."Heather McPherson, of Launching Place, was one of the many people who felt the earth move."I nearly fell over," she said."I'm an artist and all my paintings fell off the wall - I had canvasses everywhere."I came out to pick them up and I had this shudder go through the floor."I've never felt anything like it in my life, I could barely stand up."James Sandman, of Drouin in Victoria's east, was watching TV at the time."The whole house absolutely shook, like the foundations shook," he said."The walls moved, they wobbled, and myself and my wife just looked at each other and we ... both then looked at the exits wondering do we need to get out."Greg Cotton was in his apartment in South Yarra at the time."It lasted for what seemed to be about two or three seconds. It was significant," he said."I've never felt the floor move and move me, and I've lived in this particular building for 15 years."Police say no injuries or major damage have been reported so far.

COMET LULIN

Comet Lulin is approaching Earth and brightening rapidly. Observers say it is now visible to the naked eye as a faint (magnitude +5.6) gassy patch in the constellation Virgo before dawn. Even city dwellers have seen it. Backyard telescopes reveal a vivid green comet in obvious motion. Just yesterday, amateur astronomers watched as a solar wind gust tore away part of the comet's tail, the second time this month such a thing has happened. Lulin's closest approach to Earth (38 million miles) is on Feb. 24th; at that time the comet could be two or three times brighter than it is now.
photocourtesy of

PNG donates to Victoria's bush fire appeal

A remote Papua New Guinea village has donated money to the Victorian bushfire appeal almost a decade after Victorians came to their aid when a devastating tsunami killed thousands of locals.The small hospital town of Vanimo, in PNG's northwestern Sandaun province, gave 10,000 kina ($A5,567) to the Red Cross Victorian Bush Fire Appeal in a touching gesture of bonds forged through tragedy.The Aitape Tsunami in July 1998 killed more than 2,200 Sandaun villagers and made 10,000 homeless. But it was a medical team from Victoria's Monash Medical Centre, led by Dr Elizabeth Lewis, who were the first to help Vanimo's overstretched hospital.Vanimo Hospital chairman, Kevin Imba presented the cheque to Australia's High Commissioner to PNG, Chris Moraitis on Thursday in a small ceremony at the hospital."We want to pass on our deep thanks for what the people of Victoria have done for the people of Sandaun," Imba said."When we think of Australia we think fondly of Victoria and Victorians, so we offer our heartfelt condolences to those families affected in the recent bushfires."Moraitis said PNG's support of the Victorian Bushfire appeal was "touching"."This is an extraordinarily generous gesture by the board and staff of Vanimo Hospital," he said"You face significant logistical and operational challenges running this hospital here, yet you have found it in your hearts to help the families affected by the bushfires, so this donation is particularly touching," he said.Last week the PNG government gave $2 million to bushfire and flood relief, while locally PNG residents have been collecting money for the Red Cross appeal.More than 200 people died in what is Australia's worst bushfire disaster in history.The fires destroyed homes, towns and forest in southeastern Victoria.

This gesture by the people of PNG is more than touching because these people have less to give than most of the developed countries of the world . It is a truly spectacular thing for them to do.

Fire photos

The blaze approaches, heaven help that which is its path.The smoke is thick and the fire is a swirling inferno, a fire storm of unimaginable proportions


Burning trees and smoke fills the forrestThe courageous men and women of the volunteer, yes, thats volunteer, bush fire brigade
Firestorm going through the Bunyip state forrest.
The aftermath, burnt out cars at Marysville, an idylic spot in the mountains, no more, completely burnt out with many lives lost.

Victoria's fires

Surviving residents of Marysville, where up to 100 more people are feared killed in Australia's bushfires,(currently 189 and still more are expected to be found) are still being kept out of town to shield them from traumatic scenes there, authorities said on Wednesday.The rising death toll in Australia's deadliest bushfires now stands at 181, but could exceed 200, authorities say. If the Marysville deaths are confirmed, the toll may reach 300.A firefighter who drove through Marysville only 10 minutes before the firestorm hit on Saturday night said people banged on the side of his water tanker, begging his team to help people trapped in burning houses.Victoria state Premier John Brumby said Marysville, which has been off-limits since the weekend fires, would remain so because of the likelihood of ghastly sights in the once idyllic town."There are still many deceased people in homes," he said, adding between 50 and 100 may be dead in Marysville."If people return to those areas ... and there are still deceased persons there ... the impact would be quite devastating."Forensic police sifted through ash and the twisted remains of houses in Marysville, Kinglake and other towns razed by fires trying to identify the hundreds killed."You have to go street by street, house by house. There are many houses that have collapsed," said Victoria state Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, adding it would take weeks to complete the search.Some of those killed were burned so badly by fires that reached four storeys high they may never be identified."In some of these cases, it will be weeks before positive identification can be made and, I'm advised by the coroner, it may be virtually impossible to officially identify the bodies."The fires tore through rural towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night, fanned by strong winds and heatwave temperatures. Melbourne's temperature on Saturday hit 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 degrees Fahrenheit), a record for the city.The disaster area, more than twice the size of London and encompassing more than 20 towns north of Melbourne , has been declared a crime zone. The fires have burned 1,033 homes and left 5,000 people homeless.More than 4,000 firefighters are still battling some 33 fires in Victoria state, with 23 of those still out of control.Two major fires east of Melbourne are threatening to join and if so would pose a major risk to water and gas from the Thompson Reservoir and Longford gas plant, which supply Australia's second largest city. Hundreds of kilometers of control lines were being built to keep the fires apart, fire officials said."We continue to be in a fire crisis," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament.Police have launched the nation's biggest arson investigation, "Operation Phoenix," and posted a A$100,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of anyone for deliberately starting a bushfire.The tragedy is the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. The previous worst bushfire was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 that killed 75 people.The fires have increased pressure on the prime minister to take firm action on climate change as scientists blamed global warming for conditions that fueled the disaster.Australia is the most fire-prone country on earth, scientists say. Most of its bushfires are ignited by lightning. Fire officials monitor lightning strikes and any fire that does not correspond with a strike is assumed to be started by people, either accidentally or deliberately.

Victoria has ordered a Royal Commission of Inquiry to probe all aspects of the bushfires, including safety guidelines.Officials say the golden rule of surviving forest fires is to evacuate early or stay and defend their homes, but experts say that it appears many victims panicked and fled at the worst time. Some were incinerated in cars as they tried to outrun the flames.

Hot koala

What do you do when it's just too hot and you're a little koala bear living in Melbourne on a scorching hot day? Find a verandah and some friendly humans with a tub full of water and go and sit in it. aahhhh.....

Heat, heat and more heat

Much of NSW will fry under scorching 40-plus temperatures at the weekend but a cool snap next week should provide eventual relief, cutting temperatures by 20 degrees.NSW can expect hot weather on Thursday, with Penrith in Sydney's west forecast to hit 40 degrees celsius, while areas in the far west of the state could see the mercury reach the mid-40s.The scorching temperatures will continue through the weekend, climaxing with 44 temperatures in Sydney's west on Sunday, and temperatures as high as 47 in the state's west.A welcome southerly change will sweep across NSW later on Sunday, bringing an end to the heatwave.Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Jake Phillips said everywhere was going to be hot in NSW."It's just varying degrees of hot," he warned."Quite a lot of places on Saturday and Sunday will be into the 40s, and once you get into the far west, the majority of places will be up around the 40 mark, if not well into the 40s.""On Sunday, that will change for some locations. Parts of the south will start to feel the effect of that cooler change on Sunday, but still the bulk of the state is going to be hotter on Sunday."We'll see a lot of hot temperatures out west, at Ivanhoe or Broken Hill or Tibooburra. They'll be well into the 40s - 45, 46 or even 47."The southerly will blow through Sydney on Sunday night, with temperatures expected to plummet by more than 20 degrees, Mr Phillips said."On Monday, we're still looking at temperatures in the low to mid twenties, and perhaps a couple of showers around," he said."But then there is a second front that comes through late Monday or early Tuesday and that will bring another burst of even cooler air.

"Tuesday and Wednesday look like being well below average, 21 degrees or thereabouts."The cool weather could last until the end of the week, but temperatures will rise again before the end of summer."You can expect that it will warm up again, but whether we'll go to the levels that we've seen is debatable," Mr Phillips said.

LHC

The Large Hadron Collider suffered a catastrophic malfunction soon after being switched on amid a fanfare of publicity last September.A faulty electrical connection led to a leak of super-cold helium causing damage estimated at £20 million.As a result, 53 of the magnets used to accelerate sub-atomic particles around the machine's 17-mile underground tunnel have had to be brought to the surface for repair or cleaning.Engineers have now designed fail-safe protection systems to ensure that a similar accident never happens again.Electronic monitors will provide early warnings of hazards, and the magnet network will also be fitted with pressure-release valves to confine the damage caused by any future leak.The LHC, the biggest atom-smashing machine ever built, straddles the borders of France and Switzerland and is operated by Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.It is designed to simulate the "Big Bang", which started the universe 15 billion years ago, by smashing sub-atomic particles together at energies never before achieved.Scientists hope this will help them find the answers to big questions, such as what causes mass and whether hidden dimensions exist in space.There is also a possibility of tiny black holes being created in the Collider. Experts insist that if this happens, they will pose no threat.LHC project leader Lyn Evans said: "We have a lot of work to do over the coming months, but we now have the roadmap, the time and the competence necessary to be ready for physics by summer. We are currently in a scheduled annual shutdown until May, so we're hopeful that not too much time will be lost."The total cost of repairing and refitting the machine is likely to exceed £30 million.Scientists hope to have the LHC working again in June, but its first experiments are not likely to get under way until July.Liquid helium is used to cool the machine's magnets to just 1.8C above absolute zero, nature's lowest possible temperature. This allows them to be "superconductors" through which electricity can flow without resistance.When the helium leaked and evaporated it caused a number of the sensitive magnets to warm up and suffer damage.

solar eclipse

moon passing in front of sun in Perth

UFO crashes in Saudi Arabia

Astonishing events are occuring around the world and not as much as a word about them is being written or said in the West. In Saudi Arabia last week what might well have be a UFO, possibly crashing into earth, was witnessed by literally millions of people in the vicinity. Multiple photos of the object have come to light.

Arabic language forums are abuzz with Saudi citizens claiming to have witnessed what is even being described by some in the normally conservative Saudi Arabian press as a possible UFO either crashing to earth or simply executing manoeuvres designed to scare humans. Others are claiming the object was an Asteroid or a Satellite. Witnesses are reported to be waiting for an explanation from local meteorological bureau’s but have received no answers yet. ON Wednesday 7^th of January after evening prayers a loud noise was heard in the sky followed by the sighting of an intense large light heading from the west above the Al-Qasim region east of Saudi Arabia’s capital city Riyadh. Many locals had seen meteors prior to this but claimed this one did not fit the typical description at all: it was a blue green colour and was shooting out green lasers.One witness Khalid commented ‘No one has ever seen anything like it’Amazingly for an incident that hasn’t even made the news in the West, the object was seen as far away as Kuwait. The complete absence of this story within western media is truly surprising as this was not your average incident involving a few people seeing strange things in the sky, the Saudi police recieved thousands of calls about this one incident alone. It was also reported that thousands of people were terrified by what they saw and heard and many even began to pray. Some have even posted messages on the web warning that this might be a sign from God for the Kingdoms silence on Gaza. Locals in the region where the object appeared to be heading claim they heard an explosion and felt a large tremor indicating that the object crashed. The Saudi government has not released information regarding the crash site but is reported to have sealed the area. source: all news web

2009

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and seeing this is something I am interested in I will be posting munch information on this and related fields

There is so much we don't know

Bizarre carnivorous sea squirts, large spider-like creatures and an ancient fossilised coral reef have all been found in a voyage into ultra-deep Australian waters.The scientific examination Chronology of the Tasman Fracture, a four kilometre-deep crack in the earth's crust off the coast of Tasmania's southwest, has led to the discovery of creatures never seen before."A thing that was really surprising was the diversity of life down there," said Dr Ron Thresher from the CSIRO, who took part in the trip."We really didn't know what to expect in these really deep areas. It could have been anything from bare mud to lush communities. It was really a shot in the dark."Never before have life forms at such depths in Australia's oceans been studied.Using a remotely-operated submarine about the size of a small car to collect samples and data, the scientists took photos and film at different depths.At up to 3,000 metres were thousands of sea spiders, creatures about 30 centimetres in diameter that look like land spiders but are in fact unrelated.At 3,500 metres were millions of sea anemones, Dr Thresher revealed."They had never been described before. They had never even been observed before," he said."The entire bottom was covered in these things as far as you can see and it was just completely unexpected to see this huge dominant community down there."Expedition leader Jess Adkins, from the California Institute of Technology, said the deepest life forms observed were anemones living at about 4,050 metres down."Almost immediately we saw there were things living in the sediment," Professor Adkins said.There were also carnivorous sea squirts half a metre high, which trap small fish and other creatures, and differ from most other sea squirts, which filter feed.In depths from about 1,000 metres to shallower water was a reef of black, dead coral that dated to more than 10,000 years old.But for the scientists one of their most bizarre discoveries was what they did not find on the ocean floor.Dr Thresher said the team of Australian and US researchers who took part in the $US2 million ($A3 million) voyage had expected to find coral skeletons that were hundreds of thousands of years old lying in very deep depths."One of the main reasons we went out on this cruise was to find fossil corals so we can reconstruct long-term changes in oceanography and climate, so we spent a lot of time looking for these things all over the place," he said."We looked down around 3,000 metres expecting to find vast quantities of these things and they were all gone."The living ones are there, but the dead ones are simply missing. Either something really weird is going on with the water chemistry or it is a brand new community. That just doesn't seem to make any sense."Something very bizarre is happening at the bottom of the Tasmanian fracture zone, and it is going to take us a long time to work that one out."He said it was possible some layers of deep water were being affected by climate change."It is entirely possible we are getting a water mass signal that is tracking some sort of long-term climate change."That is speculative. The few bits (of coral) we picked up looked sufficiently weird. It looked like something weird was going on chemically. We will try and work that out," Dr Thresher said.The bulk of the funding for the trip, which occurred from December 16 to January 17, came from the US National Science Foundation, with extra money contributed by the CSIRO.

Youthfulness

From Dr Mercola:Since time immemorial, man has searched for the Fountain of Youth. Nothing has changed in that regard, only the methods of inquiry and discovery have progressed, catching up with some of the most outlandish sci-fi scenarios imaginable.Personally, I’m not one to want to veer too far from the natural order of things -- I don’t even want to eat a piece of genetically modified corn. But the technology and science enthusiast in me can’t help but be intrigued by the ideas and radical advances in the field of extreme life extension.This is one of the latest installments in the ongoing quest, and Russian biochemist Mikhail Shchepinov believes he may have discovered the type of water needed to make the Fountain of Youth deliver on its promise.

The Free-Radical Theory

The most widely accepted idea for life extension is the free-radical theory. According to this theory, we begin to self destruct” as we age. Our DNA becomes damaged beyond our body’s ability to repair and we eventually accumulate enough damage that can’t support life, and we die.The main agents of this destruction are oxygen free radicals; aggressive chemical compounds created as a byproduct of your natural metabolism. Over a lifetime, this progressive damage accumulates to the point where your body’s basic biochemical processes fail.This is one of the primary reasons that Coenzyme Q-10 works and why I take the reduced form, ubiquinol, every day.One of the most destructive processes is protein carbonylation, in which oxygen radicals attacks the carbon-hydrogen bonds in proteins. This process has been implicated as a cause for many age-related diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, chronic renal failure and adult-onset diabetes.Antioxidants continually combat these free radicals – which is why a diet high in natural antioxidants is so important for your health – but over the years, your biological defense systems eventually begin to suffer from oxidative damage as well and can’t function as effectively. Your state of health suffers as a result, and “age-related ailments” set in.This is where Shchepinov’s theory for youth extension comes in.The basic concept of his discovery is that heavy isotopes can slow down a molecule’s chemical reactions. Hence prolonging the time it takes before the molecule suffers damage. Is it Safe to Drink “Heavy Water"?

It’s important to note that some heavy isotopes are radioactive and obviously should not be consumed. But others, like the ones studied by Shchepinov (deuterium and carbon-13) are stable and occur naturally in your body. And, so far, they appear to be non-toxic when ingested -- up to a point. In mammals, toxic effects become apparent once 20 percent of their body water is replaced with heavy water, and is deadly once you reach the 35 percent mark. That said, a research team at the Institute for the Biology of Aging in Moscow recently tested Shchepinov’s idea on fruit flies. Though large amounts were deadly, smaller quantities increased the flies’ lifespans by up to 30 percent. But whether this was due to the isotope effect, or simple calorie restriction – which is another well documented life extension technique – is still unclear.

Aubrey de Grey Weighs in on Heavy Water

Shchepinov’s idea has been embraced by one of my favorite biogerontologists, Aubrey de Grey, Dr. de Grey is a Cambridge researcher, and chairman and chief science officer of the Methuselah Foundation. He is one of the leading pioneers in aging research and I recently had the pleasure of interviewing de Grey about his fascinating ideas for “engineering immortality.Aubrey de Grey is also the editor of the journal Rejuvenation Research that published Shchepinov’s theory in 2007. Since then, de Grey has become the scientific advisor of Retrotope, the company Shchepinov launched to pursue his anti-aging theory.Currently, Retrotope is not advocating heavy water as a cure for aging. Rather, they’re considering creating what Shchepinov calls “iFood.” This would be food products that have been already altered by the isotope effect (for example by feeding chickens heavy water), so your body’s proteins would receive nutrients that already had their vulnerable bonds strengthened, hence being less prone to free radical damage.I’m not surprised that Dr. de Grey has chosen to support this new anti-aging theory. After all, his own “strategies for engineering negligible senescence” (SENS) plan focuses on finding the main causes of age-related damage and using science to prevent or reverse them.According to Dr. de Grey, nature has not specifically pre-programmed you to die, as there is no “death gene”. You don’t perish because of some internal clock counting down to death, but because nature doesn’t bother to promote self-healing past a certain point.He claims there are seven major known causes of aging:

1. cell loss
2. death resistant cells (that overstay their welcome)
3. nuclear DNA mutations
4. mitochondrial DNA mutations
5. intracellular junk
6. extracellular junk
7. extracellular crosslinks (which link together molecules that should be kept separated)

From a strictly biological standpoint, the maximum lifespan of human beings seems to be set at around 120 years. However, I do believe it’s possible to extend your lifespan well beyond this with the regenerative technologies that Dr. de Grey discusses.And, who knows, perhaps heavy water will one day be one of them, although I believe there’s still a lot of research that needs to be done before we unleash yet another manipulated food product. The theory appears sound, but nature has a way of rebelling against too much of a good thing.Remember, too many antioxidants can be just as bad as too few! This is yet another reason to make sure you’re getting your antioxidants from healthy, raw, organic foods, rather than supplements.

How to Live Longer, Starting Today

Regulating your insulin pathways, and all the other important lifestyle changes I advocate, would clearly increase not only the quantity of your years but the quality of them as well.Proper nutrition; feeding your body the fuel it needs based on your individual biochemistry rather than a one-size-fits-all regimen, exercise, and maintaining emotional well-being should never be underestimated in the anti-aging quest.

Researchers measure heart nerve signals

Australian scientists have for the first time measured nerve signals being sent to the heart, in a breakthrough they hope will lead to better treatments for people who suffer heart attacks.Scientists placed micro-electrodes into the nerves leading to the heart and kidneys of sheep to accurately measure the impulses - with immediately unexpected results.Despite the heart's vital and unceasing work, during times of rest the brain directs more sympathetic nerve activity at the kidneys than the heart."We found that very interesting," said Dr Clive May, Principal Research Fellow at the Howard Florey Institute (The University of Melbourne )."The sympathetic nerves are the nerves which are stimulated in fight and flight, so they stimulate the heart to work faster and harder."So when you're just sitting around there's not a lot happening (nerve-wise), but when you get up to run down the street, suddenly the whole system fires up."The scientists were also able to accurately measure how, after a heart attack, these sympathetic nerve impulses are known to fire at an elevated level even when at rest.The constant bombardment of nerve impulses - at close to maximum rate - can cause an irregular heart beat in heart attack patients and even sudden death."It's the bodies way of trying to get the heart to pump more blood ... but the problem is the heart is damaged after the heart attack," Dr May said.In the past the elevated nerve activity could only be inferred from blood tests, and Dr May said an improved understanding of it could help to produce new drugs or techniques designed to control it.Medical advances also meant that more people were surviving their initial heart attack, adding to the number of people now living with these elevated nerve impulses."Because medicine has got so much better, doctors are able to save many of these patients - but they still have damage to their heart," Dr May said."Just in Australia there are 300,000 patients with heart failure, and the prognosis for it is worse than many cancers at the moment."Results of the study are published in the prominent US journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science).

Mayan elder interview

This interview was conducted from the Seattle studios to Guatemala where Carlos resides. Carlos has spoken with elders of his clan and has been given permission to share their knowledge with us. This interview has been placed on ECM's 'Recent Audio Files' page and can now be accessed. Carlos Barrios Audio File: http://www.earthchangesmedia.com/audioarchives.phpWith just 4 minutes into our discussion, Carlos told us the period between August 9th and September 4th could be hazardous. He tells us according to the Mayan Calendar, this is a period of intense energy. He is most concerned about "war". It will most likely not have to do with the Republic of Georgia and Russia, but with US backed Israel and Iran.Although China is now accepted as the wealthiest nation, and the leading industrial-manufacturing country in the world, Carlos tells us it will be 'India' which will be the world's mightiest merchant. Carlos tells us prophecy speaks of an internal revolt in China due to repression which will bring China down. He tells us India has temporarily drifted from its spiritual practices and integrity, but will regain its balance allowing India to surpass all nations of the world as the richest and healthiest country.Yes, Carlos maintains there will be a single strike nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. To my surprise, it may be India which strikes first to prevent a devastating escalation.There is more - lots more. He mentioned Yellowstone Super Volcano, undersea volcanoes in the Pacific, and of course what surrounds 2012.Reminder: It is important to maintain your own balance as your quest for information. It is very important to question, then verify, then question again what you hear or read. As I often say: "Just because I may say something with passion and conviction does it make it a truth. It only makes it "my" truth. It can only be up to each individual to "discern" and implement whatever knowledge you have of "critical thinking".In this interview, you will hear Carlos remind us again and again we are not powerless, nor is fate carved in stone. We can collectively make a difference. I think you will find a most interesting exchange between Carlos and myself regarding "critical mass" and to further define a difference between a "Spiritual Experience" and "Spiritual Awakening".