Daily Archives: October 17, 2016

Chesterfield Islands – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: October 17, 2016 at 1:28 am

Chesterfield Islands (les Chesterfield in French) is a French archipelago of New Caledonia located in the Coral Sea, 550km northwest of Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. The archipelago is 120km long and 70km broad, made up of 11 islets and many reefs. The land area of the islands is less than 10km.[citation needed]

During periods of lowered sea level during the Pleistocene ice ages an island of considerable size (Greater Chesterfield Island) occupied the location of the archipelago.

Bellona Reef, 164km south-southeast of Chesterfield, is geologically separated from the Chesterfield archipelago but commonly included.

The reef complex is named after the ship Chesterfield, commanded by Matthew Bowes Alt, which explored the Coral Sea in the 1790s.[1]

The Chesterfield Islands, sometimes referred to as the Chesterfield Reefs or Chesterfield Group, are the most important of a number of uninhabited coral sand cays. Some are awash and liable to shift with the wind while others are stabilized by the growth of grass, creepers and low trees. The reefs extend from 19 to 22S between 158160E in the southern Coral Sea halfway between Australia and New Caledonia. The Chesterfield Reefs are now part of the territory of New Caledonia while the islands farther west are part of the Australian Coral Sea Islands Territory.

Chesterfield lagoon, located between 1900' and 2030' S and 15810' and 159E covers an area of approximately 3500km2. A barrier reef surrounds the lagoon, interrupted by wide passes except on its eastern side where it is open for over 20 nautical miles (37km). The major part of the lagoon is exposed to trade winds and to the southeastern oceanic swell. The lagoon is relatively deep with a mean depth of 51 m. The depth increases from south to north.[2]

Chesterfield Reefs complex consists of the Bellona Reef complex to the south (South, Middle and Northwest Bellona Reef) and the Bampton Reef complex.

Captain Matthew Boyd of Bellona named the reefs for his ship. He had delivered convicts to New South Wales in 1793 and was on his way to China to pick up a cargo at Canton to take back to Britain for the British East India Company when he passed the reefs in FebruaryMarch 1793.

South Bellona Reef or West Point 2152S 15925E / 21.867S 159.417E / -21.867; 159.417 (Bellona Reefs - West Point), Approximately 3 m tall sand islet. Lieutenant John Lamb, R.N., Commander of the ship Baring, spent three days in the neighborhood of Booby and Bellona Shoals and reefs. Lamb took soundings between nineteen and forty-five fathoms (114270ft), and frequently passed shoals, upon which the sea was breaking. Lamb defined the limits of the rocky ground as the parallels of 2040 and 2150 and the meridians of 15815 and 15930. He also saw a sandy islet, surrounded by a chain of rocks, at 2124 south and 15830 east. The ship Minerva measured the water's depth as eight fathoms (48ft), with the appearance of shallower water to the southwest; this last danger is in a line between the two shoals at about longitude 15920 east, as described by James Horsburgh.[3]

Observatory Cay 2124S 15851E / 21.400S 158.850E / -21.400; 158.850 (Bellona Reefs - Observatory Cay), 800 m long and 2 m high, lies on the Middle Bellona Reefs at the southern end of the Chesterfield Reefs and 180nm east of Kenn Reef.

The Chesterfield Reefs is a loose collection of elongated reefs that enclose a deep, semi-sheltered, lagoon. The reefs on the west and northwest are known as the Chesterfield Reefs; those on the east and north being the Bampton Reefs. The Chesterfield Reefs form a structure measuring 120km in length (northeast to southwest) and 70km across (east to west).

There are numerous cays occurring amongst the reefs of both the Chesterfield and Bampton Reefs. These include: Loop Islet, Renard Cay, Skeleton Cay, Bennett Island, Passage Islet, Long Island, the Avon Isles, the Anchorage Islets and Bampton Island.

Long Island 1953S 15819E / 19.883S 158.317E / -19.883; 158.317 (Chesterfield Reefs - Long Island), 10nm NW of Loop Islet, is the largest of the Chesterfield Islands, and is 1400 to 1800 m long but no more than 100 m across and 9 m high. In May 1859 Henry Mangles Denham found Long Island was a heap of 'foraminifera' densely covered with stunted bushtrees with leaves as large as cabbage plants, spreading 12 feet (3.7 m) and reaching as high, upon trunks 9 inches (23cm) diameter... The trees around the margin of this island were leafless, as if from the seafowl."[citation needed] Although wooded in the 1850s, it was stripped during guano extraction in the 1870s and was said to be covered in grass with only two coconut trees and some ruins at the south end early in the 20th century. The vegetation was growing again by 1957 when the remaining ruins were confused with those of a temporary automatic meteorological station established in the same area by the Americans between 1944 and 1948. Terry Walker reported that by 1990 there was a ring of low Tournefortia trees growing around the margin, herbs, grass and shrubs in the interior, and still a few exotic species including coconuts.

South of Long Island and Loop Islet there are three small low islets up to 400 m across followed, after a narrow channel, by Passage or Bennett Island, which is 12 m high and was a whaling station in the first half of the 20th century. Several sand cays lie on the reef southeast of the islet.

The two Avon Isles 1932S 15815E / 19.533S 158.250E / -19.533; 158.250 (Avon Isles), some 188 m in diameter and 5 m high to the top of the dense vegetation, are situated 21 n.m. north of Long Island. They were seen by Mr. Sumner, Master of the ship Avon, on 18 September 1823, and are described by him as being three-quarters of a mile in circumference, twenty feet high, and the sea between them twenty fathoms deep. At four miles (7km) northeast by north from them the water was twelve fathoms (72 feet) deep, and at the same time they saw a reef ten or fifteen miles (2030km) to the southeast, with deep water between it and the islets. A boat landed on the south-westernmost islet, and found it inhabited only by birds, but clothed with shrubs and wild grapes. By observation, these islands were found to lie in latitude 19 degrees 40 minutes, and longitude 158 degrees 6 minutes. The Avon Isles are described by Denham in 1859 as densely covered with stunted trees and creeping plants and grass, and... crowded with the like species of birds."[citation needed]

Renard Island North Bampton Reef 1914S 15858E / 19.233S 158.967E / -19.233; 158.967 (Bampton Reefs - Renard Island), Approximately 6m (20ft) tall sand islet lies 45nmi (83km) northeast of the Avon Isles and is 273m (896ft) long, 180m (590ft) across and also 6m (20ft) high to the top of the bushes.

Southeast Bampton Reef 1908S 15840E / 19.133S 158.667E / -19.133; 158.667 (Southeast Bampton Reef) Sand Cay 5m (16ft) elevation

Loop Islet 1959S 15828E / 19.983S 158.467E / -19.983; 158.467 (Loop Islet), which lies 85nm farther north near the south end of the central islands of Chesterfield Reefs, is a small, flat, bushy islet 3 m high where a permanent automatic weather station was established by the Service Mtorologique de Nouma in October 1968. Terry Walker reported the presence of a grove of Casuarinas in 1990.

Anchorage Islets are a group of islets five nautical miles (9km) north of Loop Islet. The third from the north, about 400 m long and 12 m high, shelters the best anchorage.

Passage (Bonnet) Island reaches a vegetative height of 12 m

Bampton Island 1907S 15836E / 19.117S 158.600E / -19.117; 158.600 (Bampton Island), lies on Bampton Reefs 20nm NW of Renard Island. It is 180 m long, 110 m across and 5 m high. It had trees when discovered in 1793, but has seldom been visited since then except by castaways.

The reefs and islands west of the Chesterfield Islands, the closest being Mellish Reef with Herald's Beacon Islet at 1725S 15552E / 17.417S 155.867E / -17.417; 155.867 (Herald's Beacon Islet), at a distance of 180 nm northwest of Bampton Island, belong to the Coral Sea Islands Territory.

Booby Reef in the center of the eastern chain of reefs and islets comprising Chesterfield Reefs appears to have been discovered first by Lt. Henry Lidgbird Ball in HMS Supply on the way from Sydney to Batavia (modern day Jakarta) in 1790. The reefs to the south were found next by Mathew Boyd in the convict ship Bellona on his way from Sydney to Canton (modern day Guangzhou) in February or March 1793.[4] The following June, William Wright Bampton became embayed for five days at the north end of Chesterfield Reefs in the Indiaman Shah Hormuzeer, together with Mathew Bowes Alt in the whaler Chesterfield.[5] Bampton reported two islets with trees and a number of birds of different species around the ships, several of them the same kind as at Norfolk Island.[6]

The reefs continued to present a hazard to shipping plying between Australia and Canton or India (where cargo was collected on the way home to Europe). The southern reefs were surveyed by Captain Henry Mangles Denham in the Herald from 1858 to 1860.[7] He made the natural history notes discussed below. The northern reefs were charted by Lieutenant G.E.Richards in HMS Renard in 1878 and the French the following year. Denham's conclusions are engraved on British Admiralty Chart 349:

These Plans and a masthead Lookout will enable a Ship to round to under the lee of the Reefs where she may caulk topsides, set up rigging, rate Chronometers, [and] obtain turtle, fish and seafowl eggs. On some of the more salient reefs, beacons were erected by Capt. Denham, and for the sake of castaways, cocoanuts, shrubs, grasses & every description of seed likely to grow, were sown in the way to promote the superstructure; and it is most desirable that these Refuge spots should be held sacred for universal benefit and not ruthlessly destroyed by the Guanoseeker.[8]

The area is a wintering ground for numerous Humpback whales and smaller numbers of Sperm whales. During the 19th century the Chesterfield Islands were visited by increasing numbers of whalers during the off season in New Zealand. L. Thiercelin reported that in July 1863 the islets only had two or three plants, including a bush 34 m high, and were frequented by turtles weighing 60 to 100kg.[9] Many eggs were being taken regularly by several English, two French and one American whaler. On another occasion there were no less than eight American whalers.[10] A collection of birds said to have been made by Surgeon Jourde of the French whaler Gnral dHautpoul on the Brampton Shoals in July 1861 was subsequently brought by Gerard Krefft (1862) to the Australian Museum, but clearly not all the specimens came from there.

On 27 October 1862, the British Government granted an exclusive concession to exploit the guano on Lady Elliot Island, Wreck Reef, Swain Reefs, Raine Island, Bramble Cay, Brampton Shoal, and Pilgrim Island to the Anglo Australian Guano Company organized by the whaler Dr. William Crowther in Hobart, Tasmania. They were apparently most active on Bird Islet (Wreck Reef) and Lady Elliot and Raine Islands (Hutchinson, 1950),[citation needed] losing five ships at Bird Islet between 1861 and 1882 (Crowther 1939).[citation needed] It is not clear that they ever took much guano from the Chesterfield Islands unless it was obtained from Higginson, Desmazures et Cie, discussed below.

When in 1877 Joshua William North also found guano on the Chesterfield Reefs, Alcide Jean Desmazures persuaded Governor Orly of New Caledonia to send the warship La Seudre to annex them. There were estimated to be about 185,000 cu m of guano on Long Island and a few hundred tons elsewhere, and 40% to 62% phosphate (Chevron, 1880),[citation needed] which was extracted between 1879 and 1888 by Higginson, Desmazures et Cie of Nouma (Godard, nd),[citation needed] leaving Long Island stripped bare for a time (Anon., 1916).[citation needed]

Apparently the islands were then abandoned until Commander Arzur in the French warship Dumont dUrville surveyed the Chesterfield Reefs and erected a plaque in 1939. In September 1944, American forces installed a temporary automatic meteorological station at the south end of Long Island, which was abandoned again at the end of World War II. The first biological survey was made of Long Island by Cohic during four hours ashore on 26 September 1957.[11] It revealed, among other things, a variety of avian parasites including a widespread Ornithodoros tick belonging to a genus carrying arboviruses capable of causing illness in humans. This island and the Anchorage Islets were also visited briefly during a survey of New Caledonian coral reefs in 1960 and 1962.

An aerial magnetic survey was made of the Chesterfield area in 1966, and a seismic survey in 1972, which apparently have not been followed up yet. In November 1968 another automatic meteorological station was installed on Loop Islet where 10 plants were collected by A.E. Ferr.[citation needed] Since then the Centre de Nouma of the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre Mer has arranged for periodic surveys and others when this installation is serviced.

From 1982-1992 Terry Walker carried out methodical surveys of the Coral Sea islets with the intention of producing a seabird atlas. He visited the central islands of the Chesterfield Reefs in December 1990.[12]

An amateur radio DX-pedition (TX3X) was conducted on one of the islands in October 2015.

Unless otherwise noted, information in this section is from Coral Sea and Northern Great Barrier Reef Shipwrecks.[13]

Coordinates: 1921S 15840E / 19.350S 158.667E / -19.350; 158.667

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Petra Island – New York, United States – Private Islands …

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Name: Petra Island Region: New York, United States Location: Mahopac Development: Developed Title: Freehold Type: Private Island Price: Price Upon Request Status: For Sale Size: 11.00 Acres / 4.45 HA Located just 50 miles north of New York City (15 minutes by helicopter) and featuring two houses designed by famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Petra Island truly must be seen to be believed.

The island itself is 11 acres in size and is situated on New York's very private Lake Mahopac. Petra Island has its own helicopter landing pad, and is of course accessible from the mainland by boat.

Two dwellings sit on the island - a 1,200-square-foot cottage, and a 5,000-square-foot main residence which is nothing short of an architectural masterpiece.

The cottage was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1950. The main residence was built in 2008 from one of Wright's final plans, and is considered by some to be one of the most spectacular designs of his career. Boasting 1,500 square feet of skylights and vast expanses of stone, cement, and mahogany, the main residence is truly a triumph of modern architecture.

Island properties such as this are rarely seen on the market - a must-see!

This island is now also available for a one day or a week-end corporate or event retreat with the option to rent the cottage overnight for the CEO's or designated leaders of the event. Please inquire for more details.

Please inquire for price.

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Private Ocean Islands

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Private Ocean Islands is a small team of passionate island travel designers dedicated to providing the most discerning of travelers a personalized consulting service arranging escapes to the luxury private island retreats, exclusive use villas and the luxury resorts of the Indian Ocean. We understand the needs of our select guests and are adept at matching their specific requirements to our carefully curated collection of singly developed private islands, villas and resorts. We have travelled extensively and experienced each resort we offer and our first hand insight adds great value in selecting the exact island destination, be it for a honeymoon, a wedding, renewing your vows, celebrating a special birthday or anniversary, a group of friends or a family or simply a much needed relaxing island vacation away from it all. Our 24-hour concierge service is at your service throughout your travels and your stay and we provide private jet, helicopter and yacht charter, "fast track" airport assistance, private transfers and explorations, specialist care for children and security services.

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Private Ocean Islands

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Pumpkin Island – Private Islands Online

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This little private island of only 15 acres is a quaint piece of paradise that offers a blissful escape from the stresses of modern day life and a chance to partake in pristine nature. The island has everything to make your stay in paradise a memorable one. In order to preserve the intimacy and authenticity of the island, the owners have created a small eco-friendly retreat, purposely limiting the number, with a select variety of self catering cottages to five, whilst accommodating up to 30 guests. There is a very unique feel to each of the comfortable, nature-inspired cottages, only a step away from the ocean's edge. Each has a special name, colourful decor and a view of the Pacific Ocean. All cottages are self-contained and eco-friendly, powered by wind and sun, yet well appointed and charming. They have their own private bathrooms, with large decks overlooking seclusion and freedom, enjoying some of the most beautiful sunsets you will ever witness.

Take a swim at mid tide around the island's own coral lagoon and see a multitude of colourful coral, giant clams and fish. Snorkelling equipment as well as glass bottom sea kayaks are provided for your use. *Professional diving or fishing tours can also be arranged. Picnic lunch can be taken on the coconut palm-shaded lawns behind the tropical thatched hut overlooking the beach. Silence is broken only by the rustle of palm leaves and the gentle sound of waves breaking on the reef, whilst sipping away at sundowners from the Lookout's peaceful surroundings. Alternatively, arrange to have your evening ended with a beach bonfire and scrumptious marshmallows.

Fish for your own dinner within the shallow waters of the reef, or dine from our pre-order gourmet meals menu. Guests can self-cater or pre-order gourmet meals along with Australian wines, from the award winning Waterline Restaurant, at Keppel Bay Marina, Yeppoon. Meals and drinks are collected on the day of departure. The island will enchant all who choose Pumpkin Island for their self catering holidays in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Pumpkin Island is a playground for families young and old, utterly romantic for couples and a hoot for a group of friends.

There are numerous commercial flights available daily from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane into Rockhampton, Central Queensland. Upon your arrival at the Rockhampton Airport, it is a 45 minute trip by car to Yeppoon Harbour where a boat, a 45 minute boat journey, awaits to take you to Pumpkin Island. To assist in maintaining the pristine environment, there are no jetty facilities, with transfers ashore undertaken by way of a smaller vessel.

You can charter a private helicopter from Rockhampton Airport for a short forty-five-minute flight to Pumpkin Island. Alternatively, you could land your private helicopter on our helipad or sail in on your own boat.

Facilities nearby in Yeppoon - Within a 45 minute boat trip to the mainland from Pumpkin Island, you will find the nearby towns of Yeppoon, Emu Park, Byfields and Rockhampton; along with a selection of professionally designed golf courses, day spa's, sailing clubs, scuba diving shops, adventure activity centre, award winning restaurants and visits to the surrounding islands and private gardens.

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Superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies | University …

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Join Professor Nick Bostrom for a talk on his new book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, and for a journey that takes us to the frontiers of thinking about the human condition and the future of intelligent life. The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?

The book talk will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception.

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Neurotechnology SDK’s | Developer tools for integrating …

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Fulcrum is the long-time partner and an official Representative of Neurotechnology a world standard bearer in biometric technology research. Neurotechnology provides algorithms and software development kits (SDK's) for software developers and system integrators.

Drawing from years of academic research in the fields of neuroinformatics, image processing and pattern recognition, Neurotechnology was founded in 1990 in Vilnius, Lithuania under the name Neurotechnologija and released its first fingerprint identification system in 1991. Since that time the company has released more than 130 products and version upgrades for identification and verification of objects and personal identity software development products for biometric fingerprint, face, iris, voice and palm print recognition, computer-based vision and object recognition to security companies, system integrators and hardware manufacturers. More than 3,000 system integrators and sensor providers in more than 100 countries license and integrate company's technology into their own products. With millions of customer installations worldwide, Neurotechnology's products are used for both civil and forensic applications, including border crossings, criminal investigations, systems for voter registration, verification and duplication checking, passport issuance and other national-scale projects.

Their second tier offerings consist of a set of smaller single modality SDKs that handle fingerprint (VeriFinger), iris (VeriEye), face (VeriLook), or voice (VeriSpeak). These SDKs are perfect for commercial application developers who need to use only one type of biometric in order to accomplish their identification or authentication goals. All of the Neurotechnology offerings provide:

MegaMatcher technology is designed for large-scale AFIS and multi-biometric systems developers. The technology ensures high reliability and speed of biometric identification even when using large databases.

MegaMatcher is available as a software development kit that allows development of large-scale single- or multi-biometric fingerprint, iris, face, voice or palm print identification products for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android platforms.

MegaMatcher Accelerator is a hardware/software solution that provides high speed, high volume biometric identification for national-scale projects. The Extended version is designed to run on server hardware and perform fast biometric template matching on the server-side of a large-scale AFIS or multi-modal system. TheStandard version and Development Edition are designed to be run on a common PC.

MegaMatcher Accelerator Extended, Standard and Development Edition software licenses are available for new and existing MegaMatcher Extended SDK customers.

VeriFinger is a fingerprint identification technology designed for biometric systems developers and integrators. The technology assures system performance with fast, reliable fingerprint matching in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many modes.

VeriFinger is available as a software development kit that allows development of stand-alone and Web-based solutions on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android platforms.

VeriLook facial identification technology is designed for biometric systems developers and integrators. The technology assures system performance and reliability with live face detection, simultaneous multiple face recognition and fast face matching in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many modes.

VeriLook is available as a software development kit that allows development of stand-alone and Web-based solutions on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android platforms.

SentiVeillance SDK is designed for developing software that performs biometric face identification and detects moving pedestrians or vehicles or other objects using live video streams from high-resolution digital surveillance cameras.

The SDK is used for passive identification when passers-by do not make any efforts to be recognized. List of possible uses includes law enforcement, security, attendance control, visitor counting, traffic monitoring and other commercial applications.

The VeriLook Surveillance SDK allows to create applications for Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms.

VeriEye iris identification technology is designed for biometric systems developers and integrators. The technology includes many proprietary solutions that enable robust iris enrollment under various conditions and fast iris matching in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many modes.

VeriEye is available as a software development kit that allows development of stand-alone and Web-based solutions on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android platforms.

VeriSpeak voice identification technology is designed for biometric system developers and integrators. The text-dependent speaker recognition algorithm assures system security by checking both voice and phrase authenticity. Voiceprint templates can be matched in 1-to-1 (verification) and 1-to-many (identification) modes.

VeriSpeak is available as a software development kit that enables the development of stand-alone and Web-based applications on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android platforms.

SentiSight is intended for developers who want to use computer vision-based object recognition in their applications. Through manual or fully automatic object learning it enables searching for learned objects in images from almost any camera, webcam, still picture or live video in an easy, yet versatile, way.

SentiSight is available as a software development kit that provides for the development of object recognition systems for Microsoft Windows or Linux platforms.

SentiSight Embedded is designed for developers who want to use computer vision-based object recognition in their applications for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Through manual or fully automatic object learning it enables searching for learned objects in images or videos from built-in cameras with PC-like accuracy.

SentiSight Embedded is available as a software development kit that provides for the development of object recognition applications for the devices that are running Android OS.

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Conscious evolution – Wikipedia

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Conscious evolution refers to the claim that humanity has acquired the ability to choose what the species Homo sapiens becomes in the future, based on recent advancements in science, medicine, technology, psychology, sociology, and spirituality. Conscious evolution assumes that human beings may be positioned at the crest of the ongoing evolution of the universe.

It has loose connections to integral theory, Spiral Dynamics, and noosphere thought. It is also sometimes connected to the theory of the global brain or collective consciousness.

Writers and thinkers on conscious evolution include Ervin Laszlo, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and Andrew Cohen. Tobias Tripler made some important contributions in his widely appraised treatise "Common Sense and other Things Mankind has not yet achieved", Fnord, 1991.

Conscious evolution suggests that humanity can choose advancement through co-operation and co-creation or self-destruction through separateness and competition.

In April 2014, Cardinal Gerhard Mller, prefect of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a rebuke to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents the majority of U.S. nuns, for its promulgation of conscious evolution.

In the rebuke, he wrote: "The fundamental theses of conscious evolution are opposed to Christian Revelation and, when taken unreflectively, lead almost necessarily to fundamental errors regarding the omnipotence of God, the Incarnation of Christ, the reality of Original Sin, the necessity of salvation and the definitive nature of the salvific action of Christ in the Paschal Mystery."[1]

Soon after Mller's rebuke, the National Catholic Reporter issued a response by Barbara Marx Hubbard, whom Mller had mentioned in his remarks, in which she attempted to explain how the concept of conscious evolution is not, in fact, incompatible with Catholicism.[2]

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En Route to Mars, The Moon | Science Mission Directorate

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En route to Mars, the Moon

Why colonize the Moon before going to Mars? NASA scientists give their reasons.

March 18, 2005: NASA has a new Vision for Space Exploration: in the decades ahead, humans will land on Mars and explore the red planet. Brief visits will lead to longer stays and, maybe one day, to colonies.

Why the Moon before Mars?

"The Moon is a natural first step," explains Philip Metzger, a physicist at NASA Kennedy Space Center. "It's nearby. We can practice living, working and doing science there before taking longer and riskier trips to Mars."

Right: The Moon, an alien world in Earth's backyard. Photo credit: International Space Station astronaut Leroy Chiao. [More]

The Moon and Mars have a lot in common. The Moon has only one-sixth Earth's gravity; Mars has one-third. The Moon has no atmosphere; the Martian atmosphere is highly rarefied. The Moon can get very cold, as low as -240o C in shadows; Mars varies between -20o and -100o C.

Even more important, both planets are covered with silt-fine dust, called "regolith." The Moon's regolith was created by the ceaseless bombardment of micrometeorites, cosmic rays and particles of solar wind breaking down rocks for billions of years. Martian regolith resulted from the impacts of more massive meteorites and even asteroids, plus ages of daily erosion from water and wind. There are places on both worlds where the regolith is 10+ meters deep.

Answering these questions on Earth isn't easy. Moondust and Mars dust is so ... alien.

Try this: Run your finger across the screen of your computer. You'll get a little residue of dust clinging to your fingertip. It's soft and fuzzy--that's Earth dust.

Lunar dust is different: "It's almost like fragments of glass or coral--odd shapes that are very sharp and interlocking," says Metzger. (

"Even after short moon walks, Apollo 17 astronauts found dust particles had jammed the shoulder joints of their spacesuits," says Masami Nakagawa, associate professor in the mining engineering department of the Colorado School of Mines. "Moondust penetrated into seals, causing the spacesuits to leak some air pressure."

Above: Dust flies from the tires of a moon buggy, driven by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan. These "rooster-tails" of dust caused problems, which the astronauts solved using duct tape. [More]

In sunlit areas, adds Nakagawa, fine dust levitated above the Apollo astronauts' knees and even above their heads, because individual particles were electrostatically charged by the Sun's ultraviolet light. Such dust particles, when tracked into the astronauts' habitat where they would become airborne, irritated their eyes and lungs. "It's a potentially serious problem."

Dust is also ubiquitous on Mars, although Mars dust is probably not as sharp as moondust. Weathering smooths the edges. Nevertheless, Martian duststorms whip these particles 50 m/s (100+ mph), scouring and wearing every exposed surface. As the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have revealed, Mars dust (like moondust) is probably electrically charged. It clings to solar panels, blocks sunlight and reduces the amount of power that can be generated for a surface mission.

For these reasons, NASA is funding Nakagawa's Project Dust, a four-year study dedicated to finding ways of mitigating the effects of dust on robotic and human exploration, ranging from designs of air filters to thin-film coatings that repel dust from spacesuits and machinery.

The Moon is also a good testing ground for what mission planners call "in-situ resource utilization" (ISRU)--a.k.a. "living off the land." Astronauts on Mars are going to want to mine certain raw materials locally: oxygen for breathing, water for drinking and rocket fuel (essentially hydrogen and oxygen) for the journey home. "We can try this on the Moon first," says Metzger.

Both the Moon and Mars are thought to harbor water frozen in the ground. The evidence for this is indirect. NASA and ESA spacecraft have detected hydrogen--presumably the H in H2O--in Martian soil. Putative icy deposits range from the Martian poles almost to the equator. Lunar ice, on the other hand, is localized near the Moon's north and south poles deep inside craters where the Sun never shines, according to similar data from Lunar Prospector and Clementine, two spacecraft that mapped the Moon in the mid-1990s.

If this ice could be excavated, thawed out and broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen ... Voila! Instant supplies. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, due to launch in 2008, will use modern sensors to search for deposits and pinpoint possible mining sites.

"The lunar poles are a cold place, so we've been working with people who specialize in cold places to figure out how to land on the soils and dig into the permafrost to excavate water," Metzger says. Prime among NASA's partners are investigators from the Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). Key challenges include ways of landing rockets or building habitats on ice-rich soils without having their heat melt the ground so it collapses under their weight.

Testing all this technology on the Moon, which is only 2 or 3 days away from Earth, is going to be much easier than testing it on Mars, six months away.

So ... to Mars! But first, the Moon.

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Gaiam TV is now Gaia

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Gaiam TV is now Gaia

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How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs

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For the last 4 decades, the question of how to manipulate the serotonergic system with drugs has been an important area of research in biological psychiatry, and this research has led to advances in the treatment of depression. Research on the association between various polymorphisms and depression supports the idea that serotonin plays a role, not only in the treatment of depression but also in susceptibility to depression and suicide. The research focus here has been on polymorphisms of the serotonin transporter, but other serotonin-related genes may also be involved.15 In the future, genetic research will make it possible to predict with increasing accuracy who is susceptible to depression. Much less attention has been given to how this information will be used for the benefit of individuals with a serotonin-related susceptibility to depression, and little evidence exists concerning strategies to prevent depression in those with such a susceptibility. Various studies have looked at early intervention in those with prodromal symptoms as well as at population strategies for preventing depression.611 Obviously, prevention is preferable to early intervention; moreover, although population strategies are important, they are ideally supplemented with preventive interventions that can be used over long periods of time in targeted individuals who do not yet exhibit even nonclinical symptoms. Clearly, pharmacologic approaches are not appropriate, and given the evidence for serotonin's role in the etiology and treatment of depression, nonpharmacologic methods of increasing serotonin are potential candidates to test for their ability to prevent depression.

Another reason for pursuing nonpharmacologic methods of increasing serotonin arises from the increasing recognition that happiness and well-being are important, both as factors protecting against mental and physical disorders and in their own right.1214 Conversely, negative moods are associated with negative outcomes. For example, the negative mood hostility is a risk factor for many disorders. For the sake of brevity, hostility is discussed here mainly in relation to one of the biggest sources of mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD). A meta-analysis of 45 studies demonstrated that hostility is a risk factor for CHD and for all-cause mortality.15 More recent research confirms this. Hostility is associated not only with the development of CHD but also with poorer survival in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients.16 Hostility may lead to decreased social support and social isolation,17 and low perceived social support is associated with greater mortality in those with CAD.18 Effects are not just limited to CHD. For example, the opposite of hostility, agreeableness, was a significant protective factor against mortality in a sample of older, frail participants.19

The constitution of the WHO states Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.20 This may sound exaggerated but positive mood within the normal range is an important predictor of health and longevity. In a classic study, those in the lowest quartile for positive emotions, rated from autobiographies written at a mean age of 22 years, died on average 10 years earlier than those in the highest quartile.21 Even taking into account possible confounders, other studies found the same solid link between feeling good and living longer.12 In a series of recent studies, negative emotions were associated with increased disability due to mental and physical disorders,22 increased incidence of depression,23 increased suicide24 and increased mortality25 up to 2 decades later. Positive emotions protected against these outcomes. A recent review including meta-analyses assessed cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental studies and concluded that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes.26 Mood may influence social behaviour, and social support is one of the most studied psychosocial factors in relation to health and disease.27 Low social support is associated with higher levels of stress, depression, dysthymia and posttraumatic stress disorder and with increased morbidity and mortality from a host of medical illnesses.27

Research confirms what might be intuitively expected, that positive emotions and agreeableness foster congenial relationships with others.28,29 This in turn will create the conditions for an increase in social support.

Several studies found an association between measures related to serotonin and mood in the normal range. Lower platelet serotonin2 receptor function was associated with lower mood in one study,30 whereas better mood was associated with higher blood serotonin levels in another.31 Two studies found that greater prolactin release in response to fenfluramine was associated with more positive mood.32,33 The idea that these associations indicate a causal association between serotonin function and mood within the normal range is consistent with a study demonstrating that, in healthy people with high trait irritability, tryptophan, relative to placebo, decreased quarrelsome behaviours, increased agreeable behaviours and improved mood.34 Serotonin may be associated with physical health as well as mood. In otherwise healthy individuals, a low prolactin response to the serotonin-releasing drug fenfluramine was associated with the metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease,35 suggesting that low serotonin may predispose healthy individuals to suboptimal physical as well as mental functioning.

Nonpharmacologic methods of raising brain serotonin may not only improve mood and social functioning of healthy people a worthwhile objective even without additional considerations but would also make it possible to test the idea that increases in brain serotonin may help protect against the onset of various mental and physical disorders. Four strategies that are worth further investigation are discussed below.

The article by Perreau-Linck and colleagues36 (page 430 of this issue) provides an initial lead about one possible strategy for raising brain serotonin. Using positron emission tomography, they obtained a measure of serotonin synthesis in the brains of healthy participants who underwent positive, negative and neutral mood inductions. Reported levels of happiness were positively correlated and reported levels of sadness were negatively correlated with serotonin synthesis in the right anterior cingulate cortex. The idea that alterations in thought, either self-induced or due to psychotherapy, can alter brain metabolism is not new. Numerous studies have demonstrated changes in blood flow in such circumstances. However, reports related to specific transmitters are much less common. In one recent study, meditation was reported to increase release of dopamine.37 The study by Perreau-Linck and colleagues36 is the first to report that self-induced changes in mood can influence serotonin synthesis. This raises the possibility that the interaction between serotonin synthesis and mood may be 2-way, with serotonin influencing mood and mood influencing serotonin. Obviously, more work is needed to answer questions in this area. For example, is the improvement in mood associated with psychotherapy accompanied by increases in serotonin synthesis? If more precise information is obtained about the mental states that increase serotonin synthesis, will this help to enhance therapy techniques?

Exposure to bright light is a second possible approach to increasing serotonin without drugs. Bright light is, of course, a standard treatment for seasonal depression, but a few studies also suggest that it is an effective treatment for nonseasonal depression38 and also reduces depressed mood in women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder39 and in pregnant women suffering from depression.40 The evidence relating these effects to serotonin is indirect. In human postmortem brain, serotonin levels are higher in those who died in summer than in those who died in winter.41 A similar conclusion came from a study on healthy volunteers, in which serotonin synthesis was assessed by measurements of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the venous outflow from the brain.42 There was also a positive correlation between serotonin synthesis and the hours of sunlight on the day the measurements were made, independent of season. In rats, serotonin is highest during the light part of the lightdark cycle, and this state is driven by the photic cycle rather than the circadian rhythm.43,44 The existence of a retinoraphe tract may help explain why, in experimental animals, neuronal firing rates, c-fos expression and the serotonin content in the raphe nuclei are responsive to retinal light exposure.4448 In humans, there is certainly an interaction between bright light and the serotonin system. The mood-lowering effect of acute tryptophan depletion in healthy women is completely blocked by carrying out the study in bright light (3000 lux) instead of dim light.49

Relatively few generations ago, most of the world population was involved in agriculture and was outdoors for much of the day. This would have resulted in high levels of bright light exposure even in winter. Even on a cloudy day, the light outside can be greater than 1000 lux, a level never normally achieved indoors. In a recent study carried out at around latitude 45 N, daily exposure to light greater than 1000 lux averaged about 30 minutes in winter and only about 90 minutes in summer50 among people working at least 30 hours weekly; weekends were included. In this group, summer bright light exposure was probably considerably less than the winter exposure of our agricultural ancestors. We may be living in a bright lightdeprived society. A large literature that is beyond the scope of this editorial exists on the beneficial effect of bright light exposure in healthy individuals. Lamps designed for the treatment of seasonal affective disorder, which provide more lux than is ever achieved by normal indoor lighting, are readily available, although incorporating their use into a daily routine may be a challenge for some. However, other strategies, both personal and institutional, exist. Light cafes pioneered in Scandinavia have come to the United Kingdom,51 and an Austrian village that receives no sunshine in the winter because of its surrounding mountains is building a series of giant mirrors to reflect sunlight into the valley.52 Better use of daylight in buildings is an issue that architects are increasingly aware of. Working indoors does not have to be associated with suboptimal exposure to bright light.

A third strategy that may raise brain serotonin is exercise. A comprehensive review of the relation between exercise and mood concluded that antidepressant and anxiolytic effects have been clearly demonstrated.53 In the United Kingdom the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which works on behalf of the National Health Service and makes recommendations on treatments according to the best available evidence, has published a guide on the treatment of depression.54 The guide recommends treating mild clinical depression with various strategies, including exercise rather than antidepressants, because the riskbenefit ratio is poor for antidepressant use in patients with mild depression. Exercise improves mood in subclinical populations as well as in patients. The most consistent effect is seen when regular exercisers undertake aerobic exercise at a level with which they are familiar.53 However, some skepticism remains about the antidepressant effect of exercise, and the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States is currently funding a clinical trial of the antidepressant effect of exercise that is designed to overcome sources of potential bias and threats to internal and external validity that have limited previous research.55

Several lines of research suggest that exercise increases brain serotonin function in the human brain. Post and colleagues56 measured biogenic amine metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with depression before and after they increased their physical activity to simulate mania. Physical activity increased 5-HIAA, but it is not clear that this was due to increased serotonin turnover or to mixing of CSF from higher regions, which contain higher levels of 5-HIAA, with lumbar CSF (or to a combination of both mechanisms). Nonetheless, this finding stimulated many animal studies on the effects of exercise. For example, Chaouloff and colleagues57 showed that exercise increased tryptophan and 5-HIAA in rat ventricles. More recent studies using intracerebral dialysis have shown that exercise increases extracellular serotonin and 5-HIAA in various brain areas, including the hippocampus and cortex (for example, see5860). Two different mechanisms may be involved in this effect. As reviewed by Jacobs and Fornal,61 motor activity increases the firing rates of serotonin neurons, and this results in increased release and synthesis of serotonin.62 In addition, there is an increase in the brain of the serotonin precursor tryptophan that persists after exercise.63

The largest body of work in humans looking at the effect of exercise on tryptophan availability to the brain is concerned with the hypothesis that fatigue during exercise is associated with elevated brain tryptophan and serotonin synthesis. A large body of evidence supports the idea that exercise, including exercise to fatigue, is associated with an increase in plasma tryptophan and a decrease in the plasma level of the branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) leucine, isoleucine and valine (see64,65 for reviews). The BCAAs inhibit tryptophan transport into the brain.66 Because of the increase in plasma tryptophan and decrease in BCAA, there is a substantial increase in tryptophan availability to the brain. Tryptophan is an effective mild hypnotic,67 a fact that stimulated the hypothesis that it may be involved in fatigue. A full discussion of this topic is not within the scope of this editorial; however, it is notable that several clinical trials of BCAA investigated whether it was possible to counter fatigue by lowering brain tryptophan, with results that provided little support for the hypothesis. Further, exercise results in an increase in the plasma ratio of tryptophan to the BCAAs before the onset of fatigue.64,65 The conclusion of these studies is that, in humans, a rise in precursor availability should increase serotonin synthesis during and after exercise and that this is not related to fatigue, although it may be related to improved mood. Whether motor activity increases the firing rate of serotonin neurons in humans, as in animals, is not known. However, it is clear that aerobic exercise can improve mood.

As with exposure to bright light, there has been a large change in the level of vigorous physical exercise experienced since humans were hunter-gatherers or engaged primarily in agriculture.68 Lambert68 argued that the decline in vigorous physical exercise and, in particular, in effort-based rewards may contribute to the high level of depression in today's society. The effect of exercise on serotonin suggests that the exercise itself, not the rewards that stem from exercise, may be important. If trials of exercise to prevent depression are successful, then prevention of depression can be added to the numerous other benefits of exercise.

The fourth factor that could play a role in raising brain serotonin is diet. According to some evidence, tryptophan, which increases brain serotonin in humans as in experimental animals,69 is an effective antidepressant in mild-to-moderate depression.67,70 Further, in healthy people with high trait irritability, it increases agreeableness, decreases quarrelsomeness and improves mood.34 However, whether tryptophan should be considered primarily as a drug or a dietary component is a matter of some dispute. In the United States, it is classified as a dietary component, but Canada and some European countries classify it as a drug. Treating tryptophan as a drug is reasonable because, first, there is normally no situation in which purified tryptophan is needed for dietary reasons, and second, purified tryptophan and foods containing tryptophan have different effects on brain serotonin. Although purified tryptophan increases brain serotonin, foods containing tryptophan do not.71 This is because tryptophan is transported into the brain by a transport system that is active toward all the large neutral amino acids and tryptophan is the least abundant amino acid in protein. There is competition between the various amino acids for the transport system, so after the ingestion of a meal containing protein, the rise in the plasma level of the other large neutral amino acids will prevent the rise in plasma tryptophan from increasing brain tryptophan. The idea, common in popular culture, that a high-protein food such as turkey will raise brain tryptophan and serotonin is, unfortunately, false. Another popular myth that is widespread on the Internet is that bananas improve mood because of their serotonin content. Although it is true that bananas contain serotonin, it does not cross the bloodbrain barrier.

-Lactalbumin, a minor constituent of milk, is one protein that contains relatively more tryptophan than most proteins. Acute ingestion of -lactalbumin by humans can improve mood and cognition in some circumstances, presumably owing to increased serotonin.72,73 Enhancing the tryptophan content of the diet chronically with -lactalbumin is probably not practical. However, increasing the tryptophan content of the diet relative to that of the other amino acids is something that possibly occurred in the past and could occur again in the future. Kerem and colleagues74 studied the tryptophan content of both wild chickpeas and the domesticated chickpeas that were bred from them in the Near East in neolithic times. The mean protein content (per mg dry seed) was similar for 73 cultivars and 15 wild varieties. In the cultivated group, however, the tryptophan content was almost twice that of the wild seeds. Interestingly, the greater part of the increase was due to an increase in the free tryptophan content (i.e., not part of the protein). In cultivated chickpeas, almost two-thirds of the tryptophan was in the free form. Kerem and colleagues74 argue that there was probably selection for seeds with a higher tryptophan content. This is plausible, given another example of an early strategy to increase the available tryptophan content of an important food source. Pellagra is a disorder caused by niacin deficiency, usually owing to poverty and a diet relying heavily on corn (maize), which has a low level of niacin and its precursor tryptophan. Cultures in the Americas that relied greatly on corn used alkali during its processing (e.g., boiling the corn in lime when making tortillas). This enhanced the nutritional quality of the corn by increasing the bioavailability of both niacin and tryptophan, a practice that prevented pellagra.75 The Europeans transported corn around the world but did not transport the traditional alkali-processing methods, thereby causing epidemics of pellagra in past centuries. Breeding corn with a higher tryptophan content was shown in the 1980s to prevent pellagra76; presumably, it also raised brain serotonin. In a recent issue of Nature Biotechnology, Morris and Sands77 argue that plant breeders should be focusing more on nutrition than on yield. They ask, Could consumption of tryptophan-rich foods play a role in reducing the prevalence of depression and aggression in society? Cross-national studies have reported a positive association between corn consumption and homicide rates78 and a negative association between dietary tryptophan and suicide rates.79 Although the idea behind such studies is interesting, any causal attribution must remain speculative, given the possible confounds. Nonetheless, the possibility that the mental health of a population could be improved by increasing the dietary intake of tryptophan relative to the dietary intake of other amino acids remains an interesting idea that should be explored.

The primary purpose of this editorial is to point out that pharmacologic strategies are not the only ones worthy of study when devising strategies to increase brain serotonin function. The effect of nonpharmacologic interventions on brain serotonin and the implications of increased serotonin for mood and behaviour need to be studied more. The amount of money and effort put into research on drugs that alter serotonin is very much greater than that put into non-pharmacologic methods. The magnitude of the discrepancy is probably neither in tune with the wishes of the public nor optimal for progress in the prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

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How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs

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