Pluto: Small But Mighty, No Dwarf on Astrology Charts

Scorpios, rest assured. Astrologers will still be looking at Pluto to analyze your chart despite a recent ruling by the International Astronomical Union.

After 12 days of often-heated debate, 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries decided to classify Pluto as a dwarf planet, moving it out of the official definition of planet applied to the eight “classical” planets orbiting the sun.

Astronomers have felt some embarrassment for years because they did not have a definition of a planet. After their recent meeting in Prague, they’ve finally agreed on one: A planet, they insist, is “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that is assumes a… nearly round shape and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” Pluto is disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps Neptune’s path around the sun.

However, Pluto, discovered in 1930, is prepared to hold its own with astrologers.

“Pluto is small but mighty,” says Nancy Bahlman, local astrologer and phenomeNEWS columnist. Bahlman says that this change won’t affect how astrologers use Pluto to work with their clients’ charts.

“Anyone who has a Pluto transit will feel it, no matter what astronomers call it,” says Bahlman. “Pluto was disturbing Neptune’s orbit long before it was officially discovered, so it can have that pull or force on our lives, a force for change.”

“Pluto is a very powerful transformation planet,” says Maria Shaw, astrology columnist for The National Enquirer and phenomeNEWS columnist. She agrees that the union’s action won’t change how astrologers work.

And what about the two other bodies that join Pluto on the list of dwarf planet: the asteroid Ceres, which had been a planet in the 1800s before it was demoted and the icy object nicknamed Xena, which lies beyond Pluto and was discovered in 2003?
“You could bring in tons of asteroids,” says Shaw. Many astrologers look at Ceres and she uses certain smaller bodies like Chiron in her analysis and that probably won’t change, either.

TV Programs Take on Death

In the long-running TV series Touched by an Angel, Death was a pretty good looking, kindly guy.

Dead people, on the other hand, are a lot more complicated in the world of television.
On some programs, live humans take on a sincere search for those who have passed on, such as Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted or Haunting Evidence. Then there are the mediums, like John Edwards, who aim to connect the living and their departed family or friends.

Dramatic series have dipped into the well with programs like Medium, Ghost Whisperer, The Dead Zone, Afterlife and a new offering, Raines. The stories center on someone from the other side who helps living people solve crimes or deal with problems on earth.

“It seems, at least on television, that the dead have never been so vocal,” says ReligionAndSpirituality.com, and unlike classic TV programs like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, “the latest shows aren’t comedies… they’re serious, earnest dramas, dealing with life-and-death issues.”

Former Hollywood writer-turned-psychotherapist Dennis Palumbo recently commented on this topic in The New York Times. His clients include some of the creative staff working on these programs.

“I’ve noticed they feel an urgent need to use the small screen to resolve the big questions we all grapple with. For example, one writer-patient cheerfully summed up the genre’s appeal: Death is a bummer,” he said.

That same client said the show he writes is successful because of its hopeful message: “Don’t worry, death isn’t really death. It isn’t the end of anything.”

Person of the Year: It’s You!

Each one of us is a chip off the divine old block, and we’re proving it by changing the world.

So it’s not that surprising that, in an unusual move, Time magazine designated millions of ordinary Internet users as its 2006 "person of the year." Time editor Richard Stengel said what is known as user generated content (UGC) is changing society

"Time's person of the year for 2006 is you, the consumers and creators of the user generated content who are transforming the information age," he said.

In the cover story published last December, author Lev Grossman, said that Time decided to look at a world usually defined by “great” individuals from a different angle, and when they did, the choice seemed clear.

“Look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.”
The editors wanted to celebrate the millions of people who have the energy and vision to get on their computers after a long day and pour their passion into blogs, videos, music and many other expressions that find their way to the Internet.

Though there’s no telling how far this revolution can go, and it’s risky to romanticize it, still, it’s interesting.

“There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion,” said Grossman. “But 2006 gave us some ideas. This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person. It's a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who's out there looking back at them.”

Mind Reading for Mobility

ESP may take on a new role as a route to personal mobility if current research into brain activity can be put into practice.

Many people believe their secret intentions remain concealed until they put them into action, but recent studies have measured brain activity based on what we are thinking. Instead of a crystal ball or deck of cards, the scientists used high-tech brain scans like functional MRIs and computer algorithms.

The researchers analyzed brain activity patterns to decode intentions held in the minds of the research subjects.

John-Dylan Haynes from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, working with researchers from London and Tokyo, conducted experiments in which they were able to interpret brain activity to determine the secret intentions of the research subjects.

They asked study volunteers freely and covertly choose between two possible tasks: to either add or subtract two numbers, then asked them to keep their intention in mind until the relevant numbers were shown on a screen. The researchers were able to recognize the subjects’ intentions with 70 percent accuracy based only on their brain activity, even before the participants had seen the numbers and had started to make any calculations.

These incidents of “mind reading” were accomplished by programming computers to recognize characteristic brain activity patterns associated with specific thoughts. The computer then can predict the decisions of subjects from scans of their brain activity.
As the research findings are developed into practical application, we can expect to see computer-assisted devices and brain/ computer interfaces that will assist people who suffer paralysis to live more fully.

Meditation Improves Mediation

No, it’s not just a workout for the spelling-challenged among us, or a tongue twister for attorneys. Meditation has been discussed for years by those left-brained lawyers, in print and online venues under the topic of mediation, and it’s not going away.

Alternative dispute resolution, including mediation, is a way for parties to settle disputes outside the usual court channels, generally saving lots of time, money and hassle in the process. But every lawyer drilled in the winner-take-all world of litigation isn’t suited for this gentler process.

Enter meditation.

A growing number of law schools are teaching the next generation of legal gladiators that the system’s adversarial approach can be balanced by personal insight gained through meditation.

“There’s a great deal of mental and emotional suffering in this profession, said Len Riskin, a law professor from Missouri who recently joined the University of Florida School of Law, in an interview with the Associated Press. “Mindfulness meditation is a terrific way for some people to feel better.”

Riskin hopes to take the meditation sessions he taught his students in Missouri to the new post in Florida. Similar programs are in place at many other law schools around the country, including Harvard, Yale, Miami, California-Berkeley, Stanford, Howard, North Carolina.

“Meditation and mediation are both instruments of peacemaking,” says Tuan Pham, a dedicated Dharma practitioner and experienced civil and family mediator, in the Virginia state courts website devoted to dispute resolution.

“The former deals with internal conflict, and the latter with interpersonal conflict. Many skills required for success in meditation are the same as those required for success in mediation. Take ‘presence of mind’ for example. Zen practitioners call it ‘mindfulness.’ Mediators refer to it as ‘micro-focus’ or ‘attention to details.’”

Of course, outer peace begins with inner peace.

“Mindfulness meditation is more than a mental exercise,” says Pham, “and it can bring quality to your work, peace to your mind, joy to your heart, and happiness to your home.”

Three Things Lead to Happier Life

Remember that story about Aladdin and the lamp, where he makes three wishes? Remember your grandmother telling you that events happen in threes?

It seems that researchers have found at least one version of “three little things” that can help make us happier.

“I thought it was too simple to be effective,” said Caroline Adams Miller, a motivational speaker and executive coach. Every night, she was assigned to review her day, think of three good things that happened and analyze why they occurred. That ordinary exercise, Miller’s assignment as part of a master’s degree program, was supposed to increase her happiness. Too simple and obvious?

“I went to Harvard,” she told the Associated Press. “I’m used to things being complicated.” But has it worked? “The quality of my dreams has changed,” Miller said. “I never have trouble falling asleep and I do feel happier.” Guess grandma was onto something.

Curry May Slow Disease

Curries are usually known for their tasty fire and spice. Now they’re being studied for their potential health benefits as well. In a study published recently in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, scientists found that curcumin — a chemical found in curry and turmeric — may help the immune system clear the brain of amyloid beta, which form the plaques found in Alzheimer’s disease.

The early results show that the natural function of the immune system could be enhanced using curcumin, which is known for its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties.

The researchers used blood samples from six Alzheimer’s disease patients and three healthy control patients to isolate cells called macrophages, which are the immune system’s PacMen that travel through the brain and body, gobbling up amyloid beta and other waste products.

“Curcumin improved ingestion of amyloid beta by immune cells in 50 percent of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. These initial findings demonstrate that curcumin may help boost the immune system of specific Alzheimer’s disease patients,” said Dr. Milan Fiala, study author and a researcher with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System. “We are hopeful that these positive results in a test tube may translate to clinical use, but more studies need to be done before curcumin can be recommended.” Compiled by Sally Kimbel