Category Archives: Post Human

Theresa Brown (Abortion and a Womans Centrality, Feb. 26 Forum) uses an ectopic pregnancy to justify any abortion after five months of pregnancy, as if this were a typical reason given for all abortions. It isnt. This would be the equivalent of expelling a thousand high schoolers when one student is caught smoking in the bathroom.

Moreover, she never gives any sources when she states that pro-lifers would want the mother to die to save the child. This is just a false talking point that pro-abortion advocates have been spewing for years in the attempt to paint pro-lifers as against women. In reality, pro-lifers believe in loving the woman and the child, saving the womans life when threatened. Moreover, that does include free prenatal care, expert medical care for both mother and child, and everything from diapers to day care from over 3,200 pregnancy resource centers in America, 22 right here in our area (1.800.712.HELP).

Yes, pregnancy is, in Ms. Browns own words, a mother-child dyad. Its a mother and a child. Only a rigid pro-abortion supporter would deny that two human beings are involved in a pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies are rare and deserve medical treatment. Killing a preborn child should be just as rare.

E.A. SVIRBEL Whitehall

More:
A pregnancy involves the lives of two human beings | Pittsburgh ... - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Leah Reich was one of the first internet advice columnists. Her column "Ask Leah" ran on IGN, where she gave advice to gamers for two and a half years. During the day, Leah is Slacks user researcher, but her views here do not represent her employer. How to be Human runs every other Sunday. You can write to her at askleah@theverge.com and read more How to be Human here.

Dear Leah,

I was never the best at writing a good beginning for an email, and this sentence only serves to demonstrate the need for asking this particular first question: What's the line between self-confidence and having pride in one's self and achievements, and hubris and arrogance? How can I talk grandly of myself (which seems to be the de facto way of demonstrating self-confidence) without feeling guilty? I especially feel guilty about betraying my own belief that my life and achievements are things I primarily do for me, not to brag about or share constantly with others.

My second question is: How do I get romantically invested or interested in others? I'm around that age where almost everybody is a self-proclaimed expert in relationships, and I fail to be interested in having a relationship (with either gender, and being in a county where queer relationships are legally punishable doesn't help with the whole experimentation part). I mean my crushes were far and between, but it's been so long that I've been romantically interested in someone that I'm starting to wonder if relationships for men (especially those who are seemingly aromantic as myself) are simply about exploiting the other party for leisure, company and "fun" (which sounds rather disappointing considering how grandly everyone seems to think of "love," not to mention quite demeaning and dehumanizing of women)?

Last but not least: How to build empathy? Whether it's in oneself or others, what makes people make the effort to care about others and strive to understand them?

PS: As you might have realized not all these questions have that "one" answer, and to be honest I'm not looking for a perfect answer, just a nudge in the right direction would help, and I really can't think of anyone better on the internet to do so than you.

Sagittaire.

Hey Sagittaire,

What a great letter! I love these questions, and as you probably know, I think about each one of them rather a lot on my own. But three questions are a lot for one column, especially three different questions like this. Heres what Im going to do.

First, Ill start with some news: My column is ending this month. The Verge has decided to bring it to a close, so the next column will be my last one. Ive been thinking about how Id like to end it, and I cant think of a better way than with your last question. Ill answer your first question then, too. This means you get two columns, Sag!

Lets talk about your second question. I dont know how old you are because honestly that age where almost everybody is a self proclaimed expert in relationships could be anywhere from 15 to 105 but Im going to assume youre in your very early 20s. Maybe in your late teens? Its hard to tell, but regardless of how old you are, and despite what you may think about your own knowledge level on the subject, you already have some good insights into human behavior around relationships. Its just a matter of interpreting those insights.

Ive written before about being single and the pressures to find a relationship, and Ive also written about the ways social norms have such an impact on how we feel and behave and on how we think we should feel and behave. A lot of the bluster you hear about relationships from those self-proclaimed experts is probably as much about that pressure and those norms as it is about any actual expertise. Just as youre trying to sort out how you feel, and whether you want a relationship at all with anyone, so too are some of those people trying to do the same thing.

Its uncomfortable to feel like the only one whos inexperienced. Its easier to act like you know everything

For some people, their posturing around relationships is a way to pretend like they want what everyone else does or a way to act like they have the same set of experiences. Its very rare for someone to sit down and be honest and vulnerable like youre doing here, especially with peers and especially when those peers are other young men. So anyone with limited experience which is most of the people you know when youre younger ends up assuming that everyone else knows more, has done more, understands more. And because its uncomfortable to feel like the only one whos inexperienced or nave, its easier to act like you know everything. Its also easier to act like you want same things as everyone else, like a big intense huge love affair or a lot of no-strings-attached flings.

But you know what, Sag? Not everyone wants the same stuff. Not all women want a massive fairytale wedding, and not all men want to punch each other in the locker room as they joke about how many chicks theyre banging. Human experience and desire is so much more varied than that. Social norms and the way we talk about who we are and what we want have all changed a lot in recent years, but we are still a long way from really undoing many of the expectations and rules that have guided our behaviors for a long time. You know this better than many you live in a place where you cant even experiment and better understand your own sexuality because you fear legal repercussions.

Desires and experiences ebb and flow over the course of our lives

This is my way of saying that you cant use everyone else as a way to measure what you should want or how you should feel. I know thats much easier said than done. I myself struggle every single day with this I use my perceptions of what other people are doing, their successes, and where they are in their lives as a way to judge myself and highlight my own failures and shortcomings. But thats a terrible way to live, partly because I have no idea if my interpretation of who or what they are is real. After all, maybe theyre putting on a brave front just like I am. More importantly, though, what they do and how they do it has absolutely nothing to do with how I live my own life and what I want or accomplish. Should I want children just because other people do? Should I feel bad that other people are married but Im not? Should I feel like a failure for not having achieved particular markers of success? Nope!

Just because other people want to be in relationships or at least act like they do doesnt mean you have to. Maybe youre not someone whos really geared toward romantic relationships. Maybe you dont have the same kinds of sexual desires, or maybe you dont have much (or any) sexual desire at all. Maybe you only very, very occasionally find yourself drawn to someone in a romantic or sexual way. Maybe youre not ready. Maybe you havent met anyone who excites you. Maybe casual flings dont appeal to you. Maybe youre gay. Maybe casual flings would appeal to you if they were with men, and not women.

Desires and experiences ebb and flow over the course of our lives. This is another thing we dont talk a lot about. Lots of people go through periods during which they dont have any interest in sex or romance (or both). Sometimes they want to focus on work or on friendships or on themselves, or sometimes they just dont... feel anything? Bodies and brains shift and change, and we all find ourselves faced with new experiences and possibilities from time to time that make us question whatever it was we thought we wanted or desired.

Its absolutely possible to have fun (not just fun) and enjoy someones company (or have sex with them, or both) without having a serious relationship. Its not for everyone, though. Plenty of people of all genders and sexual orientations dont enjoy casual sex, or sex with someone theyre not emotionally invested in.

Just because other people want to be in relationships or at least act like they do doesnt mean you have to

You are right that a lot of what you hear about this topic is dehumanizing and demeaning toward women. (This is a longer, separate conversation, but its one I hope you do make space for and a topic you learn about.) But I dont think that all men only want relationships that demean women. The many social, cultural, and religious expectations and pressures around masculinity, femininity, marriage, and more make it very hard for people to talk about how they really feel and to pursue what they want. Its very difficult for women. But its also difficult for men! Men are told things like its not manly to talk about your feelings or to say you dont like casual hookups and instead long for an epic romance. Or things like good women dont love sex, so you can treat the ones who do badly. We all hear things like this. Theres a lot we need to rewire in ourselves and in our cultural norms. So I commend you for writing this letter, because I think if more people not just guys but all of us! could be more open like you are here, wed be a lot better off.

My advice to you is this: Dont force yourself to get interested or invested in romantic relationships. Try very hard to not compare yourself to everyone else or to measure yourself by what theyre doing. They might not even be doing what they say they are, or they might not want to be doing it. Instead, keep doing things that interest you and pursuing the types of relationships that fulfill you friends, community, volunteer work, spiritual practice, and so on. Thats going to make you feel much happier and more confident in who you are, and I think that will better allow you to understand yourself and what it is you want. Who knows, maybe along the way youll meet someone and find yourself with a new crush, one you want to pursue. Or maybe youll find that you simply are in fact aromantic or asexual. Any of this is okay. Its more than okay! Its who you are.

Ill see you back here next week for one last column.

Lx

Read the original here:
How to be human: how to be comfortably aromantic - The Verge

In Europe in the 17th century, epileptics drank human blood as a treatment. So popular was this practice, writes Bill Schutt in his new book that public executions routinely found epileptics standing close by, cup in hand, ready to quaff their share of the red stuff.

The topic of cannibalism is one of endless fascination. Just last month, the show Santa Clarita Diet, starring Drew Barrymore as a flesh-hungry American mom, premiered on Netflix. Meanwhile, Cannibal Cop Gilberto Valle returned to the news after admitting his upcoming memoir, Raw Deal, will reveal he still logs onto cannibal-fantasy websites.

But historically, Valles obsession isnt as unusual as you think. As zoologist Schutt writes, the phenomenon occurs in every class of vertebrates, from fish to mammals, as well as in many types of invertebrates. And animals are just like us: Cannibalism has pervaded the human species for centuries, especially (and surprisingly) as a medicinal cure-all.

More than 2,000 years of Chinese historical accounts contain detailed descriptions of the preparation and use of body parts as curatives, Schutt writes. By the end of the Ching Dynasty (1644-1912) ... Chinese medical treatments included the consumption of gall bladder, bones, hair, toes and fingernails, heart and liver.

But the Chinese were hardly alone. From kings to commoners, Europeans routinely consumed human blood, bones, skin, guts and body parts. They did it without guilt, though it often entailed a healthy dose of gore. They did it for hundreds of years.

Patients didnt just drink human blood directly from the source. They also consumed it as a powder or mixed into an elixir with other ingredients, Schutt writes. English physicians were still prescribing it as late as the mid-18th century.

Medical cannibalism became so popular that public executions rose dramatically in the 17th century, with body parts often cut from prisoners while they were still breathing. Over the centuries and throughout societies, sources of human food varied, from criminals to prisoners of war to ones own living relatives. Around the 1500s, Chinese soldiers would seize women and children off the street in order to cook and eat them. Other societies merely helped themselves to parts of their unburied dead.

One bizarre, misguided offshoot of the use of human tissue as medicine was the turn toward pulverized mummies, which were either consumed or applied topically, as an antidote to ailments including epilepsy, hemorrhaging and upset stomachs in 17th century Europe.

But mummy supply was limited, leading to a market for bootlegged mummies from Egypt that were often of such poor quality that they arrived with a rancid odor.

Over the centuries and throughout societies, sources of human food varied, from criminals to prisoners of war to ones own living relative

Today, the consumption of human tissue still happens with the eating of placenta, purportedly to ward off a new mothers postpartum depression and increase breast-milk production. A trend in mid-20th century Poland and 1960s and 70s America, the practice has made a comeback here of late with mothers, including actress Alicia Silverstone, eating their own placenta in the form of pills. (I got to the point that my husband said, Did you have your happy pills today? And I was really sad when they were gone. It really helped me, Silverstone has said.)

According to Schutt, who ate placenta for his research and found it firm but tender with a taste resembling that of organ meat, there are no proven benefits from the consumption of placenta and there may even be ill effects. Studies have shown that a placenta can retain some of the toxic substances and pathogens it had filtered, he writes.

Placenta tasting aside, its fair to say that the tradition of cannibalism as a cure-all has pretty much disappeared from 21st century human society. So what changed?

The rise of Enlightenment attitudes toward science author Richard Sugg says in Schutts book. Plus, he adds, theres one more obvious reason: Disgust.

Go here to see the original:
When people clamored for the ultimate 'cure-all' human flesh - New York Post

A surge in human infections of a deadly bird flu in China is prompting increasing concern among health officials around the world. While the human risk of these outbreaks is low at the moment, experts are calling for constant monitoring because of the large increase in cases this season, and because there are worrisome changes in the virus. U.S. officials say of all emerging influenza viruses, this particular virus poses the greatest risk of a pandemic threat if it evolves to spread readily from human to human, according to a report released Friday.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials are developing a vaccine that would target a newly evolving version of the virus.

China is experiencing its largest outbreak of the H7N9 bird flu strain, with at least 460 infections reported since October. About a third of people diagnosed with H7N9 have died of their infections, according to the World Health Organization.Human infections with this type of bird flu were first reported in China in March 2013, and since then, there have been yearly epidemics of human infections.

But this winter, the number of cases is greater than any of the previous four seasons. This year's infections account for more than a third of the 1,258 H7N9 cases that have been reported since 2013. Most human infections involve exposure to live poultry or contaminated environments, especially markets where live birds have been sold.During the previous four waves of H7N9, 88 percent of patients developed pneumonia, 68 percent were admitted to an intensive care unit and 41 percent died, according to a report from the CDC.

This is the virus we were concerned about in 2013, and now we're seeing these increasing number of cases, said Daniel Jernigan, who heads the CDC's influenza division, in an interview this week. This year it came back much stronger, so the numbers of cases we're seeing has already surpassed all the other waves, and the season isn't even over yet.

In addition, the virus has become more deadly to poultry, which might lead to more severe infections in humans, he said. For all those reasons, officials are watching developments closely.

This is a virus you don't want to take your eyes off, he said.

[Outgoing CDC chief talks about his greatest fear: pandemic influenza]

Among a dozen animal and bird viruses that are not yet circulating widely in people, the H7N9virus has the greatest potential to cause a pandemic, according to the CDC. That assessment is based on the virus's ability to spread easily and efficiently to people from animals and its ability to cause serious disease.

On Wednesday, WHO officials in Geneva said the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission of H7N9 remains low. The characteristics of the infections and case fatality rate remain similar to previous waves, officials said.

But constant change is the nature of all influenza viruses, Wenqing Zhang, who heads WHO's global influenza program, told reporters during a media briefing Wednesday. This makes influenza a persistent and significant threat to public health.

One change already underway is that the virus has split into two distinct genetic lineages, with a new branch of the virus family now emerging in the current epidemic, officials said.

That has rendered the H7N9 vaccine stockpiledby the United States less effective against the newly emerging branch, officials said. The CDC is developing an influenza seed virus that can be used by vaccine manufacturers to produce another H7N9 vaccine to match a newly emerging H7N9 strain.

It will take several months to produce and test a new vaccine, a process that will get underway in June and July after vaccine manufacturers complete their work on making seasonal flu vaccine.

Vaccines to protect first responders against the highest-risk bird flu viruses are part of the pandemic flu stockpile maintained by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for providing medical countermeasures to human-made and natural threats, including pandemic influenza and emerging infectious diseases.

Rick Bright, director of BARDA, said manufacturers will be producing enough vaccine to provide 40 million doses, enough to vaccinate 20 million people, he said.

Read more:

Rate of birth defects in Zika pregnancies 20 times higher than in pre-Zika years, CDC says

These 12 superbugs pose the greatest threat to human health, WHO says

Trump is energizing the anti-vaccine movement, with Texas as its epicenter

Read the original here:
Surge in human cases of deadly bird flu is prompting alarm - Washington Post

Modern humansoutlasted theNeanderthals byabout 40,000 years and counting. Butdont pat yourself on the back too firmly for outliving those troglodytes. Neanderthals crafted tools andtamed fire. They cared for their dead. Animal hornsand blackenedfirepits encircling the remains of a Neanderthal toddler suggest a42,000-year-old funeral rite. If a Neanderthal indeed wore atalon necklace,as a collection of polished eagle claws indicate, they beat us to jewelry, too. Perhaps one of your ancient ancestorsfound the claw necklaces sexy: Some scientists theorize humans gave Neanderthals genital herpes andtapeworm parasites.

Their proportions, however, remained distinctly Neanderthal. Neanderthal bodies were shorter and stockier, moreGimlison of Glointhan GigiHadid. Their skulls were built differently, too, with a fewfeatures like heavy brow ridges particularly unlike ours.

Which makes a pair of newly described skulls something of a wonder. The partial skulls have features up to this timeunseen in the hominid fossil record, sharing both human and Neanderthal characteristics.

It is a very exciting discovery, asKaterina Harvati, an expert in Neanderthal evolution at theUniversity of Tbingen in Germany, who was not involved with the research, told The Washington Post. Especially because the human fossil record from East Asia has been not only fragmentary but also difficult to date.

Excavators dug up the skull cap fragments in 2007 and 2014, in Lingjing, located in Chinas Henan province. The diggers discovered two partial skulls in a sitethought to be inhabited 105,000 to 125,000 years ago, during an epoch called the Pleistocene. The owners of the skulls were good hunters, capable of fashioning stone blades from quartz. Ancient bones of horses and cattle, as well as extinct woolly rhinoceros and giant deer, were found strewn near the skull remains.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and at Washington University in St. Louis described the skulls as having a mosaic of features. Writing Thursday in the journal Science, they noted similarities with three groups: The brow ridges of the skulls were modest and the skull bone mass was reduced, like features of early modern humans living in the Old World. The skulls had abroad and flat brainpan, like other eastern Eurasian humans from the mid-Pleistocene epoch. Their semicircular ear canalsand the enlarged section at the back of the skull, however, were like a Neanderthals.

Eastern Asian late archaic humans have been interpreted to resemble their Neanderthal contemporaries to some degree,Xiujie Wu, an author of the study at theChinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said in a statement. Yet it is only with the discovery of two human crania, she said, that the nature of these eastern Eurasian early Late Pleistocene archaic humans is becoming clear.

The largebrains of these archaic humans ruledout Homo erectusand other known hominid species, the scientists wrote. The researchers were vague about what they thought the species might be, describing them only as archaic humans. ButWu toldScience Magazine that the fossils could represent a kind of unknown or new archaic human that survived on in East Asia to 100,000 years ago.

Other experts speculated that these skull caps could represent a little-known human relative: the mysteriousDenisovans, a species that currently exists only as sequenced DNA taken from finger bone and a tooth found in a Siberian cave. Thought to live some 100,000 to 50,000 years ago, the Denisovans shared genetic material with humans as well as Neanderthals. A 2015 analysis of the specimen scraps indicated that the Denisovans lived for some 60,000 yearsside-by-sidewith Neanderthals and humans in Asia.

(That humans interbred with Neanderthals is, of course, old news. Many humans who have Eurasian ancestry carry bits of Neanderthal DNA, around 2 to 5 percent of it, within their genes. In the process of swapping DNA, Neanderthals lent us genes forbad skin while boosting our immune responses.)

The cranial remains show an intriguing combination of Neanderthal-like as well as archaic features, Harvati said. This would be the combination that one would expect based on the ancient DNA analysis of Denisovans, who were closely related to Neanderthals.

The paper did not mention Denisovans, the study authors said, because DNA extraction attempts failed to yield genetic material.

But the lack of even a nod toward the Denisovans in the new report was a point thatPhilipp Gunz, an evolutionary anthropologist at theMax Planck Institute in Leipzig, found surprising. The fossils, which Gunz called remarkable, as he told The Post, certainly look like what many paleoanthropologists (myself included) imagine the Denisovans to look like.

Time may tell if scientists can pull off a successful laboratory analysis.

Unfortunately, however, it is not possible to infer skull morphology from ancient DNA directly, Gunz said. I therefore hope that future studies will be able to extract ancient DNA from these or similar specimens.

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See the article here:
Skulls found in China were part modern human, part Neanderthal; possibly new species - Washington Post

The leader of one of the worlds largest automobile producers expectsthat cars will soon drive themselves and sync to the world around them but dontcount out the human behind the wheel just yet.

Carlos Ghosn, the chief executiveand chairman of an alliance that includes Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, said Thursday that humans will remain involved in the operation of vehicles for the foreseeable future, even as cars with self-driving technology enter the market in the next five years. You will push a button to activate the cars autonomous driving feature, he said, but it will encounter everyday scenarios it cannot compute and that require human assistance.

Artificial intelligence is still way below the creativity of the human brain, Ghosn said.

Imagine a self-driving carcoming upon a broken-down vehicle in the road, but there is a solid line to either side of it, Ghosn said. The car is wired to recognize both as impassable and doesnt have the judgment to cross over the line and pass the vehicle as long as the roadway is clear. A human will have to do the job.

Thats just one common scenario in which artificial intelligence comes up short. General Motors recently acknowledged that its own vehicles arenot sophisticated enough to respond when another motorist honks hishorn.

Ghosns perspective onthe humans role in autonomous driving is not universally shared. One of the major questions hanging over self-driving cars is how much they should depend on humans in the vehicle to intervene, if at all. Studies show that autonomous vehicles can lull passengers into a passive state, and stirring them to act when a problem arises takes time and may pose safety concerns.

Ford has seen engineers fall asleep in its self-driving cars during testing, Bloomberg reportedlast month. Both Ford and Waymo, Googles self-driving car company, intend to eliminate the role of the human driver entirely, according to Bloomberg, though other major automakers, including GM, Audi and Tesla, still plan to rely onhuman vigilance.

Self-driving technology is also expected to be an economic force with both positive and negative consequences. The technology could lead to widespread unemployment among professional drivers, for example, whether they work behind the wheel for ride-hailing services like Uber or long-haul trucking companies.

Ghosn disagrees. He said Thursday the technology will enable companies to satisfy their constant shortage of drivers, while also freeing up existing drivers to do more substantive tasks while en route.

Technology is not going to replace human beings; its going to support you, Ghosn said. Its more, I have a limitation, and I want to eliminate this limitation by bringing this technology in.

Nissan unveiled its vision for the future of cars almost exactly a year ago at the Geneva International Motor Show. Called Nissan Intelligent Mobility, the concept calls for cars that are autonomous, electric and connected to the world around them.

The company brought that vision closer to reality at the International CES technology show in January, when it debuted in-car artificial intelligence that admits when it doesnt know enough to make decisions. The car will then come to a stop and contact a human mobility manager in a command center for instructions.

As the system learns from experience, and autonomous technology improves, vehicles will require less assistance and each mobility manager will be able to guide a large number of vehicles simultaneously, Nissan said in January.

Last year, Nissan began selling a minivan in Japan that comes equipped with ProPilot technology that allows the vehicle to drive itself on single-lane highways.

Ghosn will step down as Nissans chief executivein April. He took the helm of Nissan in June 2001 and oversaw its ascent from a beleaguered automaker to part of a massive automotive alliance that includes Renault and Mitsubishi. He remains the chief executiveof Renault and chairman of all three companies.

He will be replaced at Nissan by Hiroto Saikawa, the companys co-chief executive and former chief competitive officer.

Read more from The Washington Posts Innovations section.

General Motors CEO says Trumps border tax would be problematic for auto industry

The big moral dilemma facing self-driving cars

The simple question about self-driving cars that we still cant answer

See the original post:
Why Nissan's CEO says the human brain still trumps artificial ... - Washington Post

More than four decades after the last man walked on the lunar surface, several upstart space entrepreneurs are looking to capitalize on NASA's renewed interest in returning to the moon, offering a variety of proposals with the ultimate goal of establishing a lasting human presence there.

The commercial sector's interest comes as many anticipate support from the Trump administration, which is eager for a first-term triumph to rally the nationthe way the Apollo flights did in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The latest to offer a proposal is Jeffrey P. Bezos, whose space company Blue Origin has been circulating a seven-page white paper to NASA leadership and President Trump's transition team about the company'sinterest in developing a lunar spacecraft with a lander that would touch down near a crater at the south pole where there is water and nearly continuous sunlight for solar energy. The memo urges the space agency to back an Amazon-like shipment servicefor the moon that would deliver gear for experiments, cargo and habitats by mid-2020, helping to enable future human settlement of the moon. (Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, owns The Washington Post.)

It is time for America to return to the Moon this time to stay, Bezos said in response to emailed questions from The Post. A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.

The Post obtained a copy of the white paper, marked proprietary and confidential, and the company then confirmed its authenticity and agreed to answer questions about it.

Bezoss proposal comes as SpaceX founder Elon Musk made a stunning announcement this week that his company plannedto fly two unnamed, private citizens on a tourist trip around the moon by next year an ambitious timeline that, if met, could beat a similar mission by NASA.

[SpaceX plans to fly two private citizens around the moon by late next year.]

Anticipating that the Trump administration is focusing on the moon, the space agency recently announced it is considering adding astronauts to the first flight of its Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule. That flight, originally scheduled to fly without humans in 2018, would also circle the moon. But as the space agency seeks to move faster under the Trump administration, it is now studying the feasibility of adding crew for a mission that would then occur by 2019.

[NASA officials discuss Trump's push for first-term moon mission.]

Obama killed plans for a lunar mission, saying in 2010 that weve been there before. But the administrations Mars plan was still far fromactually delivering humans there, and critics grew frustrated that NASA has not been able to fly humans out of low Earth orbit since the 1970s. A shot around the moon, however, could be feasible, even within a few years.

Blue Origins proposal, dated Jan. 4, doesnt involve flying humans, but rather is focused on a series of cargo missions. Those could deliver theequipment necessary to help establish a human colony on the moon unlike the Apollo missions, in which the astronauts left flags and footprints and then came home.

NASA already has shown a willingness to work closely with the commercial sector, hiring companies to fly supplies and eventually astronauts to the International Space Station. It is providing technical expertise, but no funding, to SpaceXs plan to fly an uncrewed spacecraft to Mars by 2020.

The prospect of a lunar mission has several companies lining up to provide not just transportation, but also habitats, science experiments and even the ability to mine the moon for resources.

The United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has also been working on plans to create a transportation network to the area around the moon, known as cislunar space.

Im excited by the possibilities, said Tory Bruno, the alliance's chief executive. This administration, near as we can tell, feels a sense of urgency to go out and make things happen, and to have high-profile demonstrations that are along the road map to accomplish these broad goals. There is an opportunity to begin building that infrastructure right now within the next four years.

Robert Bigelow, the founder of Bigelow Aerospace, a maker of inflatable space habitats, said his company could create a depot that could orbit the moon by 2020, housingsupplies and medial facilities, as well as humans. A smaller version of the possible habitats, known as the BEAM, is docked to the International Space Station, where astronauts have been testing it.

In an interview, Bigelow said he was glad the administration seems to be refocusing on the moon. Mars is premature at this time. The moon is not, he said. We have the technology. We have the ability, and the potential for a terrific business case.

At an Aviation Week awards ceremony Thursday evening, Bezos added that the moon could help propel humans even further into space, to destinations such as Mars: "I think that if you go to the moon first, and make the moon your home, then you can get to Mars more easily."

After remaining quiet and obsessively secretive for years, Blue Origins attempt to partner with NASA is a huge coming out of sorts for the company, which has been funded almost exclusively by Bezos. The paper urges NASA to develop a program that provides incentives to the private sector to demonstrate a commercial lunar cargo delivery service.

Blue Origin could perform the first lunar mission as early as July 2020, Bezos wrote, but stressed thatit could only be done in partnership with NASA. Our liquid hydrogen expertise and experience with precision vertical landing offer the fastest path to a lunar lander mission. Im excited about this and am ready to invest my own money alongside NASA to make it happen.

Last year, Blue Origin successfully launched and landed its suborbital rocket, the New Shepard, five times within less than a year, flying just past the 62-mile edge of space and then landing vertically on a landing pad at the companys West Texas facility.

That same technology could be used to land the Blue Moon vehicle on the lunar surface, the company said. Its white paper shows what looks like a modified New Shepard rocket, standing on the moon with an American flag, a NASA logo and Blue Origins feather symbol.

The company said it plans to land its Blue Moon lunar lander at Shackleton Crater on the moons south pole. The site has nearly continuous sunlight to provide power through the spacecrafts solar arrays. The company also chose to land there because of the water ice in the perpetual shadow of the craters deep crevices.

Water is vital not just for human survival, but also because hydrogen and oxygen in water could be transformed into rocket fuel. The moon, then, is seen as a massive gas station in space.

The Blue Moon spacecraft could carry as much as 10,000 pounds of material and fly atop several different rockets, including NASAs Space Launch System, the United Launch Alliances Atlas V or its own New Glenn rocket, which is under development and expected to fly by the end of the decade, the company said.

Once on the surface, the landers useful payload can be used to conduct science or deploy rovers, the company said. A robotic arm attached to the lander will deploy to examine the lunar surface with an array of instruments.

The initial landing is envisioned as the first in a series of increasingly capable missions, including flying samples of lunar ice back to Earth for study.

The company said it could also help deliver the cargo and supplies needed for human settlements.

Blue Moon is all about cost-effective delivery of mass to the surface of the Moon, Bezos wrote. Any credible first lunar settlement will require that capability.

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An exclusive look at Jeff Bezos's plan to set up Amazon-like delivery for 'future human settlement' of the moon - Washington Post

The road to Moshav Yishi near Beit Shemesh runs through hillocks dotted with red anemones kalaniyot theyre called in Hebrew. The countrys voted most beloved wildflower is immortalized in the song Kalaniyot (words by Natan Alterman, music Moshe Wilensky) recorded in 1948 by the grande dame of Israel song, Shoshana Damari. Mostly, she sang it for our soldiers fighting for Israels independence.

The roadside is lined with cars, as busy Israeli families are making time on this balmy winter Friday afternoon to glory in homeland flowers.

In the song, a young girl brings her mother a basket of anemones, a practice long since prohibited in Israel. In a later stanza, the grown-up girl is walking amid the anemones with her beloved.

Ive driven to Moshav Yishi to meet parents whose children will never grow up. Theyve been murdered by terrorists.

The parents have been invited for a therapeutic, restful Shabbat by Deena and Rabbi Menachem Mendlowitz, who built a rustic guest house, with the dream that it would serve as a place for healing.

The women know one another well theyve been taking part in a support group for years, although no one can say exactly how many. Theyre gregarious, delighted to see one another, and ebullient over finding posh lodgings instead of ramshackle huts in this not-yet-gentrified farming region. The men are more somber. Some but not all of the men know one another.

The support group has come together under the sponsorship of the Koby Mandell Foundation. Koby Mandells parents, Sherri and Seth, are here, too.

On a spring day in 2001, Koby and his pal Yosef Ish Ran set out on a Tom Sawyer-ish hike. Terrorists found the 13-year-old children in a cave and stoned them to death. In their sons memory, Sherri and Seth have created a multifaceted nonprofit to help families like their own.

Each of the parents here has a horrendous story.

When we gather in the living room, Im sitting near a woman whose son, then 18, was murdered by gunshot on his way home from registering for school. Shes also concerned for her daughter, a mother of seven, homeless since the demolition in Amona. A young couple witnessed the murder of their seven-month-old in a baby swing.

The murderer knocked on their door during a holiday meal and opened fire.

Another couples son was blown up by a bomber at a gas station.

The womens psychodrama therapist, Zipora Cedar, wants to share with the men what the women have been participating in. Cedar is a veteran practitioner of the method invented by Dr. Jacob Levy Moreno, a treatment in which persons role-play real-life experiences, often playing themselves, sometimes family members or friends who have been affected by their behavior. On a table are piles of scarves: blue, brown, eggplant, red, orange, props for the externalization of hurts and wishes.

As an ice-breaker the men and women write two words each on a paper: how their spouse would describe them and how they would like to be described.

The papers are tossed in a magicians hat and read anonymously by others in the room. She sees me as detached, but Id like her to think of me as contemplative.

He thinks Im obsessive, but Id like him to think of me as talented. These are still-evolving long marriages that have survived the violent death of a child.

In another exercise, one of the women must choose an object, body part or person who is angry at her and act out the part. The volunteer pretends shes her late mother, angry because she has forgotten to light a memorial candle to mark the anniversary of her death. Then, playing herself, the bereaved mom explains that she is so overwhelmed by sorrow for the childs death that she cannot mourn more. Instead, she says, she remembers her mother every day, inside of her.

Others join in, describing dilemmas over subjects such as whether to bring children and grandchildren to cemeteries.

A man admits to relief when his mother died, because she had lived her life without knowing the agony of burying a child. Another speaks of his finally understanding his own father, who refused to speak of his first family killed in a world war.

Let the emotional penny drop inside you, urges Cedar, reminding the participants of the once-upon-atime tokens that fell in gas meters and phone booths.

I feel the penny of gratefulness that I am an observer and not a member in this group. Then falls the penny of thinking how much of life is wasted in anger and resentment over trivialities.

And theres a penny of appreciation for those who havent forgotten the deep pain of these bereaved parents and have gifted them with this beautiful Shabbat.

Each member chooses two colored scarves an unhappy one to throw away and another to symbolize the happier expectations for Shabbat. Sadness, worries and fear are cast aside, replaced with joy and fun and relaxation. Cedar covers them with the white scarves of Shabbat sanctity of the Shabbat bride.

Anemone coronaria earned its name kalanit because it evokes beauty and majesty, like a bride kalla on her wedding day.

In the final stanzas of Kalaniyot, a grandmother, her eyes glowing with laughter and tears, remembers a forgotten melody.

The author is a Jerusalem writer who focuses on the stories of modern Israel. She serves as the Israel director of public relations for Hadassah, the Womens Zionist Organization of America. The views in her columns are her own.

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The Human Spirit: Of pennies and anemones - Jerusalem Post Israel News

Most people learned in school that the human body, like all living organisms, is made of cells. We have about 7 billion heart cells, 100 billion brain cells and 25 trillion red blood cells. All said and done, our bodies are made of about 37 trillion cells. Thats a mind-boggling number, but thats not the whole story. Our bodies are not our own up to 40 trillion bacteria and other microbes call us home. This collection of microscopic life that exists within and on us is called the human microbiome.

Our microbiome is an example of symbiosis, or a close association between two different species. There are three main types of symbiosis: mutualistic (both species benefit), commensal (one species benefits, no effect on the other) or parasitic (one species benefits, the other is harmed). The vast majority of our microbiome is commensal, but some species are mutualistic. Your large intestine is home to most of your microbiome up to 1,000 species of bacteria. These bacteria feast on food that our bodies cannot digest, transforming that food into chemicals we can use. Your gut bacteria can also prevent harmful bacteria, such as C. difficile, from invading your colon.

Bacterial diseases are treated with antibiotics that kill the infecting bacteria, but they can also kill the bacteria in your gut. This can cause C. difficile colitis, or inflammation of the large intestine accompanied by diarrhea. In extreme cases, C. difficile colitis may require hospitalization. There is evidence to suggest that transplanting bacteria from the stool of a healthy donor can keep the C. difficile in check. These stool transplants are gaining acceptance in the medical field as C. difficile gains resistance to antibiotics.

Its easy to live your life without ever thinking about your microbiome. Most people never give it a second thought. But the more we explore and understand it, the better we will understand being human is more than being human.

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Let's talk about science: The human microbiome - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A view of the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. (photo credit:MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

This weeks Torah portion deals with details of building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.

This was the temporary temple that accompanied the people during their wanderings in the desert, until the permanent Temple was built in Jerusalem.

We read of many details relating to the building of the Tabernacle, the exact measurements of its ritual objects, and the exact length and width of the Tabernacle itself.

The parasha begins with these words spoken to Moses: Speak to the Children of Israel, and have them take for Me an offering... (Exodus 25:2).

Moses was instructed to collect the funds needed to build the Tabernacle from the nation: ...from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My offering (ibid.).

When we look at the name of the parasha Truma (offering, contribution) an interesting question pops out at us. One would think that the parasha should be named Mishkan, not Truma. Though the Tabernacle was built from the offerings of the nation and the generosity of those who contributed from their own pockets to have it built, the collection of funds was not a goal in itself. There was no need to raise money other than because without contributions from the generous of heart, there would be no way to build the Tabernacle. The truma, the contribution, was only a means to get to the significant end the construction of the Tabernacle.

The answer to this question lies in the words of the Sages of the midrash. They took the verse And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst (ibid. 25:8) and explained: It does not say in its midst but, rather, in their midst in the midst of each and every person.

Had God said And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in its midst, that would have meant that God resides in the Tabernacle or Temple, where He reveals Himself. We can absorb His holiness only in the Temple, where God dwells. According to this outlook, there is no Divine revelation within us humans.

There is also no personal connection between us and God; that connection is possible only with the Temple as an intermediary.

But that is not what the words say. The sensitive and careful reading by the Sages accurately discerned the exact form of the verse, I will dwell in their midst, and understood from this that God dwells within each of us. This teaches us that God reveals Himself in our hearts. We all recognize within ourselves the desire to be good, to be a better person. Gods voice emanates from within us. Each of us carries the ambition to make the world more perfect, for people to smile at one another, for the world to be kinder.

The purpose of building the Temple is so we all recognize within ourselves the voice of God, that we are not meant to accept reality, but that we have the power to make it better.

For this reason, the Temple was built with everyones truma. These contributions created the personal connection between each member of the Jewish nation and its most sacred site.

The Temples holiness stemmed from it being constructed by everyones desire to build a House of God, a place that would be a moral and spiritual beacon, a compass for all of humanity.

We are all connected to the building of the Temple, since it was built from contributions that came from each person in the nation, and therefore it symbolizes our desire to be a part of the lofty endeavor of Divine revelation in the world.

Though the Temple was destroyed about 2,000 years ago, the sense of holiness that enveloped all who entered it still exists somewhat until today. Whoever visits the Western Wall nowadays would probably sense a sort of transcendence that comes from the proximity of the Western Wall to the site of the Temple.

Visiting this place emphasizes that despite all our disagreements, humanity shares a wide common denominator around which it can create one society that is diverse but that can work in partnership for the greater good. The divisiveness, disputes and disagreements cannot negate our ambition to make ourselves and our world better and more complete.

The sense of transcendence one gets from a visit to the Western Wall must be maintained by internalizing the concept that God does not dwell in the Temple alone but in each of us. We can all become a small temple and discover inside ourselves the light, the goodness and the beauty that God bequeaths to the world.

The writer is the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.

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Parashat Truma: A human 'temple' - Jerusalem Post Israel News