System failure

2012

2012-02-19T11:09:00.000Z

World Wide Civil War

2012-02-13T23:07:00.000Z

The Battle in Syntagma Square

2012-02-13T22:29:00.000Z

The protests in Greece concern all of you directly.

What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion; an invasion as brutal as that against Poland in 1939.

The invading army wears suits instead of uniforms and holds laptops instead of guns, but make no mistake – the attack on our sovereignty is as violent and thorough. Private wealth interests are dictating policy to a sovereign nation, which is expressly and directly against its national interest. Ignore it at your peril.

Finally, we have woken up and taken to the streets.

A totally bi-partisan crowd of hundreds of thousands of people have occupied the area in front of our Parliament.

And what they say is this:

"We will not suffer any more so that we can make the rich, even richer. We do not authorise any of the politicians, who failed so spectacularly, to borrow any more money in our name. We do not trust you or the people that are lending it. We want a completely new set of accountable people at the helm, untainted by the fiascos of the past. You have run out of ideas."

Wherever in the world you are, their statement applies.

Money is a commodity, invented to help people by facilitating transactions. It is not wealth in itself. Wealth is natural resources, water, food, land, education, skill, spirit, ingenuity, art.

In those terms, the people of Greece are no poorer than they were two years ago. Neither are the people of Spain or Ireland or the UK. And yet, we are all being put through various levels of suffering, in order for numbers (representing money which never existed) to be transferred from one column of a spreadsheet to another.

This is why the matter concerns you directly.

Because this is a battle between our right to self-determine, to demand a new political process, to be sovereign, and private corporate interests which appear determined to treat us like a herd, which only exists for their benefit. It is the battle against a system which ensures that those who fuck up, are never those that are punished – it is always the poorest, the most decent, the most hard-working that bear the brunt.

The Greeks have said “Enough is enough”.

What do you say?

The Truth About Greece – Democracy vs Mythology – The Battle in Syntagma Square - Alex Andreou

Human Rights

2012-02-07T21:05:00.000Z

The Assange Case Means That We Are All Suspects Now - by John Pilger

"With American courts demanding to see the worldwide accounts of Twitter, Google and Yahoo, the threat to Assange, an Australian, extends to any internet-user anywhere. Washington’s enemy is not “terrorism” but the principle of free speech and voices of conscience within its militarist state and those journalists brave enough to tell their stories."

READ MORE

Freedom

2012-02-07T20:51:00.000Z

STOP ACTA

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

Benjamin Franklin

For a split second

2012-02-05T22:18:00.000Z

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

Match Point - 2005 (Director and Writer: Woody Allen)

First love

2012-02-05T21:52:00.000Z

How does it feel like... to feel?

2012-01-31T12:58:00.000Z

How does it feel like,
to wake up in the sun?
How does it feel like,
to shine on everyone?
How does it feel like,
to let forever be?
How does it feel like,
to spend a little lifetime sitting in the gutter?

Scream a symphony.

How does it feel like,
to sail in on the breeze?
How does it feel like,
to spend a little lifetime sitting in the gutter?

Scream a symphony.

How does it feel like,
to make it happen here?
How does it feel like,
to breathe with everything?
How does it feel like,
to let forever be?
How does it feel like,
to spend a little lifetime sitting in the gutter?

Scream a symphony.

How does it feel like,
to be a crystalline?
How does it feel like,
to spend a little lifetime sitting in the gutter?

Scream a symphony.

Coimbra

2012-01-30T01:24:00.000Z

From nowhere to nowhere

2012-01-20T21:01:00.000Z

I still don’t know why I didn’t manage to keep a better footing on the slippery path called life, why some people go through it straight down the main road while others wander endlessly around dim alleyways.

Einar Mar Gudmundsson, Angels of the Universe

Going home

2011-12-21T22:47:00.000Z

Every day is a journey,

and the journey itself

is home.

Matsuo Basho

About freedom...

2011-12-20T22:36:00.000Z

Occupy Christmas

2011-12-17T16:16:00.002Z

what you do when....

2011-12-08T19:43:00.000Z

As far as we'll let them

2011-11-16T23:20:00.000Z

The Internet Looks Like a Fractal Dandelion

2011-11-15T00:44:00.000Z

In 2004 Barrett Lyon’s friends bet him $50 that he couldn’t map the entire Internet in a day. Within two weeks the self-described technologist and entrepreneur had created a program that could output a detailed visualization of Internet connectivity in a few hours. Seven years and billions more Internet-connected devices later, Lyon is still at it. This cosmic-looking image, one of his newest creations, traces the millions of routes along which data can travel and pinpoints the hubs receiving the most traffic. Internet giants such as AT&T and Google manage the most heavily used networks, which appear here as glowing yellow orbs; they tend to concentrate in the center of the sphere. The less popular local networks (red) sit on the periphery. Although Lyon’s visualizations have appeared in computing textbooks and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he says he has yet to collect on his bet.

Source: Discovermagazine.com

Attachment

2011-11-08T21:03:00.000Z

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection.(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The world we live in

2011-10-27T23:34:00.000+01:00

The Corpocrats, the speculators, the ones who are busy making the world into a casino, have no intention of ever considering the fates of the people. The only thing they are set on is amassing huge wealth, even if it will be the end of the world we live in.

Siv O'Neall

Once

2011-10-22T22:52:00.001+01:00

...

You only live once,

but if you do it right,

once is enough.

...

i am not moving

2011-10-17T22:16:00.000+01:00

The 1% have addresses...

2011-10-17T21:58:00.000+01:00

http://www.occupytheboardroom.org/

United for Global Change

2011-10-14T14:53:00.000+01:00

One second...

2011-10-10T12:41:00.000+01:00

Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.

The World vs Wall Street

2011-10-10T02:28:00.000+01:00

Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street -- financial institutions generally -- has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called "a precariat" -- seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity -- not only too big to fail, but also "too big to jail."

The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.

Noam Chomsky

the war you don't see... but you should.

2011-10-06T22:41:00.001+01:00

União Europeia: Pessoas vs Bancos

2011-09-30T19:15:00.000+01:00

We shall overcome

2011-09-27T08:27:00.000+01:00

Leaving...

2011-09-13T20:27:00.000+01:00

And always remember:

Count your blessings, not your troubles.

I walk in a line

2011-08-30T21:35:00.000+01:00

For the dark finds ways of being engraved in the light

2011-08-23T23:50:00.000+01:00

Bailed out by taxpayers

2011-08-16T23:46:00.000+01:00

British high-street banks, including two institutions that were bailed out by taxpayers, are investing hundreds of millions of pounds in companies that manufacture cluster bombs – despite a growing global ban outlawing the production and trade of the weapons.

The Lloyds TSB, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC have all provided funding to the makers of cluster bombs, even as international opinion turns against a weapons system that is inherently indiscriminate and routinely maims or kills civilians.

If...

2011-08-16T08:20:00.002+01:00

The show must NOT go on.

2011-07-10T12:30:00.000+01:00

“ We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

George Orwell (1946)

Economic warfare: subverting life on earth to financial interests

2011-07-09T10:55:00.000+01:00

Economic warfare: subverting countries to financial interests

2011-07-09T10:51:00.000+01:00

Invention of Love

2011-07-06T19:32:00.002+01:00

In a world I never made

2011-07-06T19:30:00.000+01:00

The laws of God, the laws of man
He may keep that will and can
Not I: Let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;

And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and most condemn
Yet when did I make laws for them?

Please yourselves, Say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbor to their will,

And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hellfire
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?

I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though, both are foolish, both are strong

And since, my soul, we cannot flee
To Saturn or to Mercury
Keep we must, If we can
These foreign laws of God and man.

A.E. Housman

Life is an aesthetic experience

2011-06-24T15:09:00.001+01:00

Anaesthetising

2011-06-24T11:13:00.000+01:00

Dos Vampiros e outros mistérios...

2011-06-16T11:09:00.000+01:00

Portugal destrói o plasma do sangue que recolhe devido a problemas com um concurso que obriga o Instituto Português do Sangue (IPS) a gastar anualmente 70 milhões de euros a adquirir este produto de saúde, segundo dados revelados pelo presidente do IPS, Álvaro Beleza, em declarações à agência Lusa.

Álvaro Beleza confirmou desta forma a notícia avançada pelo “Jornal de Notícias” de que “metade do sangue doado vai para o lixo”.
Devido a um problema com o concurso para a inactivação e fragmentação do plasma, este é destruído. E há dez anos que é assim. Para o presidente do IPS, a situação é revoltante e, para já, poderá ser parcialmente resolvida através da utilização dessas 90 mil unidades de plasma pelos hospitais.
No entanto, enquanto a questão concursal não se resolver, as restantes mais de 300 mil unidades de plasma continuarão a ser incineradas e Portugal a pagar 70 milhões de euros na sua aquisição a outros países. Nas contas de Álvaro Beleza, mesmo que em matéria de plasma Portugal não se torne para já auto-suficiente, o aproveitamento do plasma do sangue recolhido poderia gerar poupanças na ordem dos 15 milhões de euros anuais.
O especialista espera que este problema se resolva rapidamente e que o mesmo não abale a confiança dos portugueses, bem como a sua generosidade e vontade em doar sangue.

Portugal utiliza 400 mil unidades de sangue, das quais 90 mil de plasma para uso directo nos hospitais.

Via: http://www.univadis.pt

The Advertisers

2011-06-15T15:55:00.001+01:00

Perhaps

2011-06-13T13:25:00.000+01:00

"Or perhaps what matters is not the human pain or joy at all but, rather, the play of shadow and light on a live body, the harmony of trifles assembled on this particular day, at this particular moment, in a unique and inimitable way."

Vladimir Nabokov, “The Fight”

No army in the world can stop an idea whose time has come.

2011-06-12T13:44:00.000+01:00

Forecast

2011-05-29T22:43:00.002+01:00

"One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever”

Konrad Lorenz

Cuántos lugares se han tornado vanos

2011-05-29T22:30:00.000+01:00

Habré de levantar la vasta vida

que aún ahora es tu espejo:

cada mañana habré de reconstruirla.

Desde que te alejaste,

cuántos lugares se han tornado vanos

y sin sentido, iguales

a luces en el día.

Tardes que fueron nicho de tu imagen,

músicas en que siempre me aguardabas,

palabras de aquel tiempo,

yo tendré que quebrarlas con mis manos.

¿En qué hondonada esconderé mi alma

para que no vea tu ausencia

que como un sol terrible, sin ocaso,

brilla definitiva y despiadada?

Tu ausencia me rodea

como la cuerda a la garganta,

el mar al que se hunde.

JLBorges - Ausencia

Another day, another color

2011-05-09T00:17:00.000+01:00

And now for something completely different

2011-04-21T19:49:00.000+01:00

Comfortably detached

2011-04-20T08:41:00.000+01:00

It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness.

We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

Chuck Palahniuk

The unknown

2011-04-18T21:35:00.000+01:00

"The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."

Arundhati Roy

Black holes

2011-04-12T23:30:00.000+01:00

Beyond the event horizon, nothing can be seen and nothing can escape.

A brilliant mistake

2011-04-11T02:35:00.000+01:00

Alex: I hope you like sunflowers

Mara: I love sunflowers. You know that.

Alex: Why? Why do you love sunflowers?

Mara: Because I always thought that when God was making beautiful things, He messed up with sunflowers.

Alex: How?

Mara: Well, 'cause they look like - I don't know. They look like crooked teeth around a mouth that's too big, kind of.

Alex: Yeah.

Mara: But... just when He was about to start over, He realized that's what made them beautiful. They were a brilliant mistake.

Alex: Like you and me.

Primavera II

2011-04-11T02:18:00.000+01:00

Primavera

2011-04-11T01:45:00.000+01:00

Irrefutable conclusions

2011-03-31T23:41:00.000+01:00

Weekend

2011-03-20T15:48:00.002Z

Three Essays on Portuguese Monetary Economics*

2011-03-18T00:38:00.000Z

PEC 1

PEC 2

PEC 3

* Dissertação de doutoramento de Teixeira dos Santos (1985)

We will win together

2011-03-13T11:09:00.000Z

"There are more of us than there are of them!

We will win together."*

*America Is NOT Broke: Michael Moore Speaks.

Prunus persica

2011-03-06T23:46:00.000Z

The reason

2011-03-04T20:05:00.000Z

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."

Louise Erdrich

bitter or sweet

2011-03-02T02:01:00.000Z

“There’s a common misunderstanding among all the human beings who have ever been born on the earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable. You can see this even in insects and animals and birds. All of us are the same. A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is.”

Pema Chodron

Keyword Analysis

2011-02-23T00:19:00.000Z

Cat

2011-02-16T08:18:00.000Z

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

Mark Twain

Lisbon mysterious creatures

2011-02-12T12:16:00.000Z

Bom dia

2011-02-12T02:05:00.000Z

If...

2011-02-08T14:19:00.000Z

Fragile, temporary, and precious.

2011-02-04T21:40:00.000Z

Contact

2011-02-02T08:26:00.000Z

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Carl Jung

Crave

2011-01-28T20:12:00.001Z

And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand an go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the tv programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair our eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse your and sit on the steps smoking till your neighbour comes home and sit on the steps smoking till you come home and worry when you're late and be amazed when you're early and give you sunflowers and go to your party and dance till I'm black and be sorry when I'm wrong and happy when you forgive me and look at your photos and wish I'd known you forever and hear your voice in my ear and feel your skin on my skin and get scared when you're angry and your eye has gone red and the other eye blue and your hair to the left and your face oriental and tell you you're gorgeous and hug you when you're anxious and hold you when you hurt and want you when I smell you and offend you when I touch you and whimper when I'm next to you and whimper when I'm not and dribble on your breast and smother you in the night and get cold when you take the blanket and hot when you don't and melt when you smile and dissolve when you laugh and not understand why you think I'm rejecting you when I'm not rejecting you and wonder how you could think I'd ever reject you and wonder who you are but accept you anyway and tell you about the tree angel enchanted forest boy who flew across the ocean because he loved you and write poems for you and wonder why you don't believe me and have a feeling so deep I can't find words for it and want to buy you a kitten I'd get jealous of because it would get more attention than me and keep you in bed when you have to go and cry like a baby when you finally do and get rid of the roaches and buy you presents you don't want and take them away again and ask you to marry me and you say no again but keep on asking because though you think I don't mean it I do always have from the first time I asked you and wander the city thinking it's empty without you and want what you want and think I'm loosing myself but know I'm safe with you and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me because you don't deserve any less and answer your questions when I'd rather not and tell you the truth when I really don't want to and try to be honest because I know you prefer it and think it's all over but hang on in for just ten more minutes before you throw me out of your life and forget who I am and try to get closer to you because it's beautiful learning to know you and well worth the effort and speak German to you badly and Hebrew to you worse and make love with you at three in the morning and somehow somehow somehow communicate some of the/ overwhelming undying overpowering unconditional all-encompassing heart-enriching mind-expanding on-going never-ending love I have for you.

Perspectives

2011-01-26T12:53:00.000Z

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. (...)

More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.

V for Vendetta (2006)

Better eyes

2011-01-09T16:55:00.000Z

"We all see what we want to see. Coffey looks and he sees Russians. He sees hate and fear. You have to look with better eyes than that."

"The abyss" 1989

Sour

2011-01-02T17:45:00.000Z

"And I know sour, which allows me to appreciate the sweet."

Current mood

2011-01-01T22:41:00.000Z

A lonely house

2011-01-01T12:09:00.000Z

"so I wait for you like a lonely house

till you will see me again and live in me."

Pablo Neruda - “Evening” [Sonnet LXV]

Happy new year

2010-12-30T08:12:00.000Z

Mira, no pido mucho,
solamente tu mano, tenerla
como un sapito que duerme así contento.
Necesito esa puerta que me dabas
para entrar a tu mundo, ese trocito
de azúcar verde, de redondo alegre.
¿No me prestás tu mano en esta noche
de fìn de año de lechuzas roncas?
No puedes, por razones técnicas.
Entonces la tramo en el aire, urdiendo cada dedo,
el durazno sedoso de la palma
y el dorso, ese país de azules árboles.
Así la tomo y la sostengo,
como si de ello dependiera
muchísimo del mundo,
la sucesión de las cuatro estaciones,
el canto de los gallos, el amor de los hombres.

Julio Cortazar - Happy new year

FELIZ NATAL...

2010-12-24T13:45:00.000Z

On a quest to find... the meaning of christmas # 5

2010-12-22T03:34:00.001Z

Transplante de medula óssea trata doente com sida

2010-12-20T13:54:00.000Z

Investigadores alemães submeterem um paciente com cancro a um transplante de medula óssea e quatro anos mais tarde consideram este paciente, que também era portador de VIH, curado desta infecção, dá conta um estudo publicado na “Blood”.

Os autores do estudo, liderados Thomas Schneider, do hospital Charite, em Berlim, Alemanha, explicam que, por norma, o transplante de medula óssea costuma ser o último recurso no tratamento de cancros como a leucemia. Este transplante exige a destruição da medula óssea do próprio paciente - o que é, em si, um processo desgastante -, e o dador precisa ter um tipo de sangue e de sistema imunológico quase idênticos ao do receptor. São ainda necessários meses de espera até que o sistema imunológico do paciente seja restabelecido.

O paciente que sofria de leucemia e era portador do vírus da SIDA, recebeu o transplante em 2007, de um doador que tinha uma mutação num gene que codifica uma proteína, conhecida por receptor CCR5, o qual é utilizado pelo vírus para invadir e infectar as células do hospedeiro.

Desde 1996 que os cientistas sabiam que algumas pessoas, principalmente com origem no norte da Europa, que têm essa mutação não são infectadas pelo VIH. Alguns investigadores estão a trabalhar numa terapia genética que possa tratar e talvez curar o VIH, mas a tecnologia ainda está em estágios experimentais.

Os investigadores têm acompanhado o paciente e retirado algumas amostras do intestino, fígado, líquido cefalorraquidiano e cérebro, locais onde o vírus pode passar anos "escondido" até infectar as células. Contudo, a infecção por este vírus não foi detectada em nenhuma das amostras referidas.

Os cientistas concluem, assim, que, “de acordo com estes resultados, é razoável concluir que a cura da infecção pelo VIH foi conseguida neste paciente".

O vírus da SIDA afecta actualmente 33 milhões de pessoas no mundo, principalmente na África, e já matou 25 milhões nos últimos 30 anos. Existem já medicamentos que podem controlar a infecção, reduzindo o risco de contágio para outras pessoas, mas não existe ainda uma vacina.

FONTE: Estudo publicado na “Blood”

On a quest to find... the meaning of christmas # 4

2010-12-18T22:37:00.000Z

Source: This isn't happiness

Howl

2010-12-14T23:36:00.000Z

On a quest to find... the meaning of christmas # 3

2010-12-14T00:03:00.000Z

On a quest to find... the meaning of christmas # 2

2010-12-10T12:51:00.000Z

E se o nascimento de Jesus fosse em 2010?

On a quest to find... the meaning of christmas # 1

2010-12-08T23:54:00.001Z

FILMESDAMENTE

John Lennon: 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980

2010-12-08T16:30:00.000Z

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."

John Lennon

Light

2010-12-06T23:29:00.000Z

Shadow

2010-12-06T23:21:00.000Z

PEACE SHADOW PROJECT

Ghost

2010-12-06T23:14:00.000Z

Let it snow

2010-12-03T00:46:00.000Z

Changing

2010-11-14T16:37:00.000Z

As you read these words, your brain is changing. Through a maze of pathways far more complex than any computer network, your brain is distributing copies of what you are seeing to more than a dozen separate processing centers, where words are being recognized, analyzed, and understood. Simultaneously, the neurons in your brain are undergoing subtle changes where they connect with each other, so that if you read these words again—whether a minute or a year from now—you're likely to remember at least something of what they said.

Continued... here: "THE SYNAPSE REVEALED"

Wuthering heights

2010-11-08T13:50:00.000Z

weekend

2010-11-01T18:47:00.001Z

Snapshots

2010-10-29T15:02:00.000+01:00

Hearts in Space

2010-10-26T12:32:00.001+01:00

En el principio era el amor.
Sin el amor nada existía.
El alma que una vez amó,
nunca jamás se apagaría.

Volver a amar era intentar
tornar al punto de partida,
apresar humo, tocar cielos,
poseer la luz infinita.

Volver a amar era querer
revivir las flores marchitas.
Era escuchar la voz del alma
que llamaba al alma perdida.

Volver a amar era llorar
por la dicha desvanecida.
Era encontrar con quien partir
el pan y el vino de otros días.

Pero -de sobra lo sabemos-
sólo una vez se ama en la vida.
Volver a amar, es evocar
el amor que colmó la dicha.

Es, sin querer, hacer sufrir.
Sentir la rueda detenida.
Que si el espejo sufre, es porque
la vieja imagen está viva.

En el principio era el amor.

José Hierro, "Con las piedras, con el viento" 1950

Irrefutable conclusions

2010-10-24T23:04:00.000+01:00

Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.

Pam Brown

Modern slavery

2010-10-24T11:40:00.000+01:00

Law of Banks:

"In order to get a loan you must first prove that you don't need it."

Type Writing

2010-10-23T19:45:00.001+01:00

Typewriter in 1870

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

Anaïs Nin

Universal cancer marker shows new treatment options

2010-10-23T19:08:00.003+01:00

A single screening method that can force a wide range of cancers to reveal themselves has been discovered. The universal cancer marker could help doctors find and treat tumours, and provide surgeons with a "dotted line" to cut them out.

The key to the technique is the receptor for follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). This receptor – typically involved in controlling women's reproductive cycles – appears in unusually large amounts in prostate tumours. So Aurelian Radu at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and colleagues looked for it in 1336 human tumour samples, including prostate, breast, lung and liver cancers.

The group applied colour-labelled antibodies for the FSH receptor to the samples. They found that in every sample, the antibodies bound to blood vessels around the periphery of the tumour.

Radu doesn't yet know why tumour blood vessels express the receptor, though he thinks it might play a role in the formation of new vessels.

READ MORE...

The marker could be useful in pinpointing and treating tumours, says Radu. Currently, different imaging techniques are used to identify different types of tumour. "Using this marker, we can use one imaging technique for the whole body," says Radu. He hopes broader screening will enable earlier detection of secondary tumours.
Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry's Institute of Cancer agrees: "It's certainly a good marker, and could be especially useful in surgery, which is a bit hit-and-miss at the moment," she says. Using colour-labelled antibodies to highlight the edges of a tumour could enable surgeons to "cut along the dotted line".
Additionally, by attaching a cancer drug to an FSH receptor antibody, "we have the potential to target therapy exclusively to the tumour", says Radu.

Drugs that inhibit the FSH receptor are already in development as potential contraceptives, says Radu. He hopes that some might be trialled as anti-cancer drugs in the future.

Journal reference: The New England Journal of Medicine, vol 363, p 1621

bonjour

2010-10-20T00:36:00.003+01:00

minúsculas luzes

2010-10-19T22:05:00.005+01:00

Por vezes cada objecto se ilumina
do que no passar é pausa íntima
entre sons minuciosos que inclinam
a atenção para uma cavidade mínima
E estar assim tão breve e tão profundo
como no silêncio de uma planta
é estar no fundo do tempo ou no seu ápice
ou na alvura de um sono que nos dá
a cintilante substância do sítio
O mundo inteiro assim cabe num limbo
e é como um eco límpido e uma folha de sombra
que no vagar ondeia entre minúsculas luzes
E é astro imediato de um lúcido sono
fluvial e um núbil eclipse
em que estar só é estar no íntimo do mundo

António Ramos Rosa, in "Poemas Inéditos"

Deep Ocean music

2010-10-08T22:52:00.004+01:00

The LIDO (Listening to the Deep Ocean Environment) site offers a live feed to 10 hydrophones sprinkled around European waters, and one in Canada. Several more are scheduled to come soon in Canada and in Asia.

The network's primary aim is to record and archive long-term subsea noise so that researchers can study the effects of human activity on whales and dolphins.

To spread joy

2010-10-07T12:40:00.005+01:00