The solar wind is 352 km/sec and there are nine Sunspot clusters on the Sun today. Barely visible when
the weekend began, sunspot AR1619 has blossomed into a large active region more than three times as
wide as Earth. So far the growing sunspot has not produced any significant flares, but the quiet is unlikely
to continue if its expansion continues apace. Fast-changing magnetic fields on the sun have a tendency to
reconnect and erupt. NOAA forecasters estimate a 20% chance of M-class solar flares during the next 24
hours.
There was a total eclipse of the Sun this week visible by land only in Australia. People who have
experienced total eclipses first-hand say the Moon's shadow is one of the most amazing aspects of the
experience. Its arrival causes many birds to stop singing; a hush descends on the landscape as the sky
darkens and the air temperature suddenly drops. The Moon's shadow lances more than a quarter million
miles across the silent vacuum of space, and when it lands on Earth, it seems to bring a bit of otherworldly
cold with it.
Mysterious stranding on Irish beach involved up to 50,000 starfish
By: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com
It was a surreal and somewhat ghostly sight: that of perhaps 50,000 starfish that somehow had come ashore
overnight, en masse, and perished on a secluded beach in Ireland. The Belfast Telegraph reports that harsh
weather might have been responsible for last week's peculiar and mysterious event, on Lissadell Beach.
As many as
50,000 starfish line Lissadell Beach in Ireland. Experts are not sure, but believe a severe storm brought them
ashore. Courtesy of Belfast Telegraph
Bill Crowe, a marine biologist at Sligo Institute of Technology, theorized that the starfish (also called sea stars)
might have been lifted ashore while feeding on mussel beds in the nearshore tidal zone. They were spread
over nearly 500 feet of coastline.
"The most likely explanation is that they were feeding on mussels, but it is a little strange that none of them
were attached to mussels when they were washed in," Crowe said.
A toxic algae bloom would seem another possible explanation, but no other type of marine life was affected.
Only starfish, mostly adult size, were found on the beach.
Equally mysterious is that virtually all of the starfish were dead, meaning they had succumbed surprisingly
quickly after coming or being delivered ashore.
Other experts agreed that the most likely explanation is stormy weather, and perhaps high surf that deposited
the starfish on the beach.
"They turned up almost certainly as a result of an exceptional storm event," said Tim Roderick, an officer with
Ireland's National Parks and Wildlife Service. "A storm hit the seabed where these sub-tidal animals were and
lifted them up and washed them ashore."
The bizarre incident, like a smaller-scale die-off that occurred earlier this year on another beach in Ireland,
remains under investigation.
Starfish, which can live up to 35 years in the wild, are among the most interesting critters in the world oceans.
They possess no brains, and no blood. According to National Geographic: "Their nervous system is spread
through their arms and their 'blood' is actually filtered sea water."
They're carnivorous and feed largely on clams, mussels and oysters.
"Using tiny, suction-cupped tube feet, they pry open clams or oysters, and their sack-like cardiac stomach
emerges from their mouth and oozes inside the shell," National Geographic explains. "The stomach then
envelops the prey to digest it, and finally withdraws back into the body."
It remains unclear who collected the 50,000 dead specimens on Lissadell Beach, and what became of them
Rat Poison in Galapagos
Call it ratmageddon.
Ecuadorean authorities say the unique bird and reptile species that make the Galapagos Islands a treasure for
scientists and tourists must be preserved — and that means the rats must die, hundreds of millions of them.
A helicopter is to begin dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on an island Thursday,
launching the second phase of a campaign to clear out by 2020 non-native rodents from the archipelago that
helped inspire Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The invasive Norway and black rats, introduced by whalers and buccaneers beginning in the 17th century, feed
on the eggs and hatchlings of the islands' native species, which include giant tortoises, lava lizards, snakes,
hawks and iguanas. Rats also have depleted plants on which native species feed.
The rats have critically endangered bird species on the 19-island cluster 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from
Ecuador's coast.
"It's one of the worst problems the Galapagos have. (Rats) reproduce every three months and eat everything,"
said Juan Carlos Gonzalez, a specialist with the Nature Conservancy involved in the Phase II eradication
operation on Pinzon island and the islet of Plaza Sur.
Phase I of the anti-rat campaign began in January 2011 on Rabida island and about a dozen islets, which like
Pinzon and Plaza Sur are also uninhabited by humans.
The goal is to kill off all nonnative rodents, beginning with the Galapagos' smaller islands, without endangering
other wildlife. The islands where humans reside, Isabela and Santa Cruz, will come last.
Previous efforts to eradicate invasive species have removed goats, cats, burros and pigs from various islands.
Pinzon is about seven square miles (1,812 hectares) in area, while Plaza Sur encompasses just 24 acres (9.6
hectares).
"This is a very expensive but totally necessary war," said Gonzalez.
The rat infestation has now reached one per square foot (about 10 per square meter) on Pinzon, where an
estimated 180 million rodents reside.
The director of conservation for the Galapagos National Park Service, Danny Rueda, called the raticide the
largest ever in South America.
The poisoned bait, developed by Bell Laboratories in the United States, is contained in light blue cubes that
attract rats but are repulsive to other inhabitants of the islands. The one-centimeter-square cubes disintegrate
in a week or so.
Park official Cristian Sevilla said the poison will be dropped on Pinzon and Plaza Sur through the end of
November.
A total of 34 hawks from Pinzon were trapped in order to protect them from eating rodents that consume the
poison, Sevilla said. They are to be released in early January.
On Plaza Sur, 40 iguanas were also captured temporarily for their own protection.
Asked whether a large number of decomposing rats would create an environmental problem, Rueda said the
poison was specially engineered with a strong anti-coagulant that will make the rats dry up and disintegrate in
less than eight days without a stench.
It will help that the average temperature of the islands is 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius), he
added.
The current $1.8 million phase of the project is financed by the national park and nonprofit conservation groups
including Island Conservation.
The Galapagos were declared protected as a UNESCO Natural Heritage site in 1978. In 2007, UNESCO
declared them at risk due to harm from invasive species, tourism and immigration.
US and Australia Improving Chinese Surveillance
CNSNews.com) – Australia has agreed to host key U.S. space surveillance equipment, including a telescope
so sophisticated it can search an area in space the size of the United States in seconds, and detect a small
object on the Empire State Building from as far away as Miami, Florida.
Envisaged targets include space debris and Chinese space launches, a U.S. defense official told reporters
after the announcement was made in Perth, Western Australia on Wednesday.
The Pentagon has expressed concern in recent years over advances in China’s space and counter-space
capabilities, particularly after Beijing in 2007 launched a ground-based ballistic missile to destroy a Chinese
weather satellite in orbit, some 500 miles above the Earth.
The successful test of an anti-satellite weapon made China just the third country, after the U.S. and Soviet
Union, ever to have shot down an object in space.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his Australian counterpart, Stephen Smith, agreed during AustraliaUnited States ministerial (Ausmin) talks in Perth to relocate a space surveillance telescope from New Mexico,
and a U.S. Air Force C-band space surveillance radar from Antigua in the Caribbean.
This map shows the expected location in Australia'€ ™s far northwest, marked A, of a powerful U.S. radar and
telescope that will track objects in space and monitor Chinese space launches. (Google Maps)
Both are expected to be based in remote northwestern Australia, at a communications station that was used by
the U.S. Navy during the Cold War.
Panetta said the decision, along with the possible establishment of a combined communications gateway in
Western Australia, represented “a major leap forward in bilateral space cooperation and an important new
frontier in the United States’ rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region.”
“We recognized the need to address the rising threat presented by increasing congestion in space from over
50 years of space activities and a significant rise in space debris,” an Ausmin communique stated. “In
particular, we need to ensure our continued access to space assets for services critical to the functioning of
modern economies, as well as for national security purposes.”
The C-band radar will track space assets and debris in low-earth orbit and increase the coverage of space
objects in the southern hemisphere.
The space surveillance telescope will provide enhanced capability detecting and tracking of objects in what are
known as “geosynchronous orbits” – some 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface – according to its
manufacturer, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The agency said in a statement the 180,000 pound telescope will “track and catalogue space debris and
objects unique to the space above that region of the world that could threaten DoD satellites.”
“The system is capable of detecting a small laser pointer on top of New York City’s Empire State Building from
a distance equal to Miami, Florida,” DARPA said. “These features combine to provide orders of magnitude
improvements in field of view and scanning for deep space surveillance.”
The data captured by the telescope will be fed into a worldwide U.S. Air Force network that observes and
catalogues space objects and warns on possible collisions between them. Data on small asteroid detection will
also be provided to NASA and the scientific community.
‘The Pacific is big enough for all of us’
This year’s annual Ausmin consultations brought together Panetta, Smith, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr.
“Part of our new defense strategy, we’ve made clear that one of our key focuses is to rebalance to the Pacific,”
Panetta told a joint press briefing. “We simply would not be able to do that effectively without allies like
Australia.”
In line with an agreement reached between the two countries last year, from the middle of this year Australia’s
Northern Territory began hosting 250 U.S. Marines for six-month rotations, for training and as a base for
humanitarian and military operations in the region. The number will gradually build up to 2,500 by 2016.
Smith said during the press briefing the two sides have also begun discussions on further U.S. access to
Northern Territory airfields, and possible U.S. naval access to Australia’s Indian Ocean naval port, near Perth.
Carr and Clinton dispelled any concerns China may have about the moves.
“We want to continue to build positive, cooperative, comprehensive relations with China, and that means
through strong economic engagement and encouraging progress on human rights,” Carr said. “There was no
language of containment in this, but we both welcome China’s role as a responsible member of the
international community.”
Clinton said the U.S. and Australia “both recognize that increased cooperation from China is mutually
beneficial. So this is not a zero-sum competition.”
“As I’ve said many times, we welcome a strong and prosperous China that plays a constructive and greater
role in world affairs,” she said. “But we also want to see China act in fair and transparent ways that respect
international norms and standards, follows international law, protects the fundamental freedoms and human
rights of its people and all people. And the Pacific is big enough for all of us.”
The Pentagon has warned that China’s expanding space program over the past decade includes capabilities
with potentially hostile military applications.
In a May 2012 report to Congress on Chinese military power the DoD reported that “China is expanding its
spacebased surveillance, reconnaissance, navigation, meteorological, and communications satellite
constellations.”
As China continues to develop its space launch payload capabilities, the report said, it is also “developing a
multidimensional program to limit or deny the use of space-based assets by adversaries during times of crisis
or conflict.”
“In addition to the direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon tested in 2007, these counterspace capabilities also
include jamming, laser, microwave, and cyber weapons. Over the past two years, China has also conducted
increasingly complex close proximity operations between satellites while offering little in the way of
transparency or explanation.”
The Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Global Times on Thursday cited Chinese experts as saying the
stepped up U.S.-Australia cooperation would “pose no actual threat to China considering the country’s
modernized national defense forces.”
“Distracted by the crises in the Middle East and domestic budget pressures, the U.S. is seeking allies’ help to
jointly contain China,” said Gu Guoliang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute
of American Studies.
Xu Guangyu, a senior researcher at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told the newspaper
that China is able to “take countermeasures if the monitoring interferes with our space activities.”
Even if the radar and telescope deployment enables the U.S. to monitor the orbit and speed of Chinese rockets
and missiles, Xu said, confidential information relating to guidance systems will remain concealed.

It is a violation of the fundamental principle of non-contradiction in that "Something cannot 'be' and 'not
be' at the same time in the same respect" to express a concern about the military capabilities of
communist states while concurrently hollowing out our own military by unilaterally disarming them both
materially and morally under the leadership of individuals whose resumes are proof positive that they
despise our military, which defines the sham Obama Administration that never met an American military
capability critical to national defense that couldn't be negotiated away. This is why Putin is on record of
being delighted with Comrade Obama's reelection, as he understands that any concern professed by
Obama for America's national security is feigned, given that the Manchurian Candidate Obama is
destroying America's economy which puts America's defense in grave peril!
BANGKOK, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Thai officials reassured the U.S. Secret Service that lizards found on the Government House
grounds were not the dangerous komodo dragons, but water lizards.
The U.S. team mistook the relatively benign water monitors for the carnivorous komodo dragons as the team conducted
security inspections of the Government House Thursday ahead of President Obama's visit that begins Sunday, the
Bangkok Post reported.
Meanwhile, a U.S. explosives team reported five locations Obama will visit during his two-day visit to Thailand have been
scanned.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's security detail also was planning and rehearsing for a reception for the U.S.
president.
The United States is interested in establishing a humanitarian and disaster relief force at U-Tapao, a naval and air force
complex on the eastern seaboard built by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
"The return to U-Tapao would be very symbolic for the U.S., sending a message to China that it is returning to mainland
South-East Asia," Panitan Wattanayagorn, a military affairs expert at Chulalongkorn University, told the Post.
Such a move would require approval by Thai lawmakers, some of whom are skeptical about the U.S. military being
permanently based in Thailand, he said.
U.S. officials have announced plans to focus more on the Asia Pacific region in military, cultural and development areas.
The sun unleashed a monster eruption of super-hot plasma Friday (Nov. 16) in back-to-back solar storms
captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft.
The giant sun eruption, called a solar prominence, occurred at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT), with another event
flaring up four hours later. The prominences was so large, it expanded beyond the camera view of NASA's
Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which captured high-definition video of the solar eruption.
This still shows the sun as it erupted with two prominence eruptions, one after the other over a four-hour period
(Nov. 16, 2012). NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured the view.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO/Steele Hill
View full size image
In the video, a colossal loop of glowing red plasma erupts from the lower left of the sun, arcing up and out of
frame as it blasts away from the star.
"The red-glowing looped material is plasma, a hot gas made of electrically charged hydrogen and helium,"
officials with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which oversees the SDO mission, explained in a
description. "The prominence plasma flows along a tangled and twisted structure of magnetic fields generated
by the sun’s internal dynamo. An erupting prominence occurs when such a structure becomes unstable and
bursts outward, releasing the plasma."
Friday's solar eruption does not appear to be aimed at Earth, so will likely have little effect on our planet. But
that was not the case earlier this week when a powerful solar flare erupted on Monday (Nov. 12). That flare
registered as an M6-class eruption, a moderate but still intense solar event.
On Tuesday and Wednesday (Nov. 13 and 14), space weather conditions sparked a geomagnetic storm that
supercharged the Earth's auroras, creating spectacular northern lights displays for observers at high latitudes.
When aimed directly at Earth, the most powerful solar flares and eruptions can pose a threat to satellites and
astronauts in orbit, and also interfere with communication, navigation and power systems on the ground.
The sun is currently in the middle of an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle. The current cycle is
called Solar Cycle 24 and is expected to peak in 2013.
Giant Spiders
(AP) GAUHATI, India - Officials say colonies of giant biting spiders have attacked villagers and sparked panic
in remote northeast India. But they say locals' attempts to treat the painful swelling caused by the bites may be
more dangerous than the spiders themselves.
Two bite victims have died in Tinsukia district. Authorities say it is unclear whether they died from venom or
from treatment by witch doctors who cut them with razor blades to drain the wounds.
Local magistrate Kishore Thakuria said the victims were cremated before autopsies could be done.
Another seven bite victims have been treated with antibiotics against infection after they also tried to drain their
wounds, said Dr. Anil Phapowali at the local Sadiya town hospital.
A man displays a spider suspected to be a new species of tarantula in Tinsukia, Assam state, India.
/AP Photo
The hairy spiders were first noticed about a month ago across Tinsukia district's grassy plains and dense jungle
forests north of the Brahmaputra River.
Ecologist L.R. Saikia at Assam's Dibrugarh University said it may be a previously unknown species of
tarantula.
"It looks like a new species. We haven't been able to identify it," he said Tuesday. Officials cannot use antivenom in treating bite victims until the species is identified.
Meanwhile, villagers are keeping lamps on at night and standing guard against spiders entering their mud-andthatch huts.
There are about 100,000 villagers, mostly poor rice farmers, living in the area cut off from roads by the river.
Officials say the spiders are now also showing up south of the Brahmaputra
ers in northeast resemble police state
ovember 15, 2012 by: J. D. Heyess
4
(NaturalNews) Doom, gloom and despair is growing in the Northeast in the weeks following Superstorm
with thousands of New Yorkers and New Jersey residents still reeling from the loss of their homes and p
For many, the despair has grown into an intense anger, as tent cities set up by the Federal Emergency
camps. Moreover, the aftermath of Sandy is a story the mainstream media is largely ignoring, unlike Hurricane Katrina. (http://w
oke to the Asbury Park Press talked bitterly about the cold, harsh conditions in tent cities with Blackhawk helicopters buzzing o
u could see your breath," Brian Sotelo, a Seaside Heights resident who was at Pine Belt Arena in Toms River with his wife and
as superstorm Sandy approached last week, told the small press. "At (Pine Belt) the Red Cross made an announcement that t
ere that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot showers and steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. W
rt falling through the cracks
elter that is called - ironically - "Camp Freedom." But no one there feels free or secure - or comfortable.
d here we are. There were Blackhawk helicopters flying over all day and night. They have heavy equipment moving past the te
difficulty he and his family - and other camp dwellers - have in trying to relax and get some rest.
come to the part of the disaster where people start falling through the cracks."
s lucky to get any interview at all; no media is allowed inside "Camp Freedom," which also serves as a base of operations for p
. Until recently, the camp was also a shelter where first responders, construction and utility workers could take a break, though
that is being maintained by the state Department of Human Services.
he Asbury Park Press, Sotelo scrolled through pictures he took inside the camp as his wife, Renee, huddled for warmth inside t
with personal belongings, as they drove through the snow and slush to talk about what they have been through. Images he sho
es, of snow and ice penetrating the bottom of a tent, and of an elderly woman sitting alone, huddling beneath a blanket.
with tinted windows crests the hill and cruises by, as if to check on the proceedings," the paper reported.
r here'
he tent city have recently become so frustrated with their situation, they are doing all they can to let the outside world know - bu
hat be.
cials have tried to stop camp dwellers from taking pictures, turned off the WiFi and have told residents they can't charge their ce
Angie was a premie and has a problem regulating her body temperature," Sotelo said. "Until 11 (Wednesday) night they had no
ter everyone started complaining and they found out we were contacting the press, they brought people in."
an iPhone or something, the cops would come and unplug them. Yet when they moved us in they laid out cable on the table an
ging stations. But suddenly there wasn't enough power," he continued.
ot of water in his home when he was forced to leave. Now, he wonders why he isn't allowed to return.
here. It's like being in prison," he said.
Is the New Madrid fault zone under methane gas attack from the Louisiana Sinkhole and the Gulf of
Mexico? According to the Examiner’s Deborah Dupre, natural methane gas leaks in Louisiana now
number 28.:
“Methane gas leaks are spreading throughout the south Louisiana area. Within four months, as of this
week, methane bubbling sites have increased to twenty-eight” and we also learn that methane is the
mysterious “powerful underground force” wreaking havoc.
Meanwhile, we’ve had at least 6 mysterious explosions within the last month within the New Madrid
fault zone from Louisiana through Northern Indiana and a continuing cover-up in Louisiana over what
is really going. In the video at the bottom of the story, we learn from an official that it ‘could go a lot
further’ and that ‘a lot of information has yet to come out’.
The first explosion occured on November 7th at about 8 pm in Shelby County, Indiana. From
WishTv.com.:
“Pieces of a log home litter a country yard in Shelby County after an explosion happened on the 5700
block of W. 1100 N.
Deputies received a call for help at the home just before 8 p.m.Tuesday.”
LINK
Fortunately no one was killed in the 1st incident; the 2nd explosion in an Indiannapolis subdivison, the victims
weren’t so lucky. Authorities still don’t have answers in either of these explosions. However, our chain of
Indiana explosions doesn’t end with just 2; since then, we have had 2 more in this New Madrid state.
On Monday evening November 12th, the Rodeo restaurant in Greenfield Indiana also had an explosion
followed by another house explosion Tuesday night in rural Albion. One look at these 4 locations on a map
shows two quite obvious trends; each of these homes is within the New Madrid fault zone and the locations
line up in very close to a straight line south to north.
Compare these locations to areas likely to be effected heavily by any impending New Madrid rupture
and you see that each of these has fallen within the suspect area. When you add to these 4
mysterious explosion 2 more recent explosions which took place at Camp Minden Louisiana, we have
6 mysterious explosions within a month period of time and a steadily Northward progression.
Meanwhile, the situation at the Louisiana sinkhole spewing methane gas will not go away and, according to
this official, has the potential to spread far and wide.:
Top Official Warns: Sinkhole could go ‘a lot’ further, potential is substantial — ‘A lot’ of information has yet to
come out
Obama reportedly signs classified cyberwarfare
policy directive with troubling implications
By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
(Image credit: Open Congress)
The Washington Post has reported that Obama himself signed a classified cyberwarfare policy directive, which
is especially interesting given that the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 just failed on a 51-47 vote in the Senate,
according to Hillicon Valley.
The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 met some early opposition among the likes of John McCain (who introduced his
own legislation to compete) and apparently even with its prominent supporters it was not able to pass.
Yet the United States government is likely not at all concerned since Obama went ahead and signed a secret
policy directive that “effectively enables the military to act more aggressively to thwart cyberattacks on the
nation’s web of government and private computer networks,” according to The Washington Post.
Obviously the most interesting – and, arguably, alarming – bit of that statement is, “and private computer
networks.”
This is especially interesting because the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of Fiscal Year 2012
actually included an offensive cyberwarfare provision, although it did not specifically state that private computer
networks could be brought under government control.
Indeed, while the language of “defense” is regularly used, as it is in the above Washington Post article, one
can quite easily notice that private networks would undoubtedly be placed, at least to some extent, in
government hands, regardless of defense needs.
For those who have been paying attention, this prospect might seem especially troubling since the government
can’t even manage to secure the American drone fleet or US Central Command systems.
Unfortunately, the Washington Post report is by no means unconfirmed and unreliable, as The Hill reported
that a senior official in the Obama administration indeed confirmed that Obama signed a directive on “cyber
operations.”
“This step is part of the administration’s focus on cybersecurity as a top priority,” the official said to The Hill.
“The cyber threat has evolved since 2004, and we have new experiences to take into account.”
However, the official claimed that the directive does not give any new powers to federal agencies or the
military; although we simply have to take his or her word for it since the directive itself is secret.
“The directive establishes principles and processes for the use of cyber operations so that cyber tools are
integrated with the fully [sic] array of national security tools we have at our disposal,” said the official.
“It provides a whole-of-government approach consistent with the values that we promote domestically and
internationally as we have previously articulated in the International Strategy for Cyberspace,” the official said.
One must wonder if “Plan X” being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
is at all related to what is being called Presidential Policy Directive 20.
“What [Presidential Policy Directive 20] does, really for the first time, is it explicitly talks about how we will use
cyber operations,” an anonymous senior White House official said to The Washington Post.
“Network defense is what you’re doing inside your own networks. . . . Cyber-operations is stuff outside that
space, and recognizing that you could be doing that for what might be called defensive purposes,” the official
said.
However, apparently this isn’t entirely new since, according to the Post, it is an update of a 2004 presidential
directive.
“It should enable people to arrive at more effective decisions,” said another unnamed senior official in the
Obama administration cited by the Post. “In that sense, it’s an enormous step forward.”
What kind of a step forward will it be? Is this heading in a positive direction? Let us know by giving your
feedback in the comments section.
Did I forget anything or miss any errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or
perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to contact me at admin@EndtheLie.com
with your concerns, tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may strike your fancy.
How long until the Sun goes red giant?
It is 3.86 billion billion megawats, so unless I did the decimal counting wrong, that makes it 3.86 (your
3.9) x 10 26 watts per second.
Also, your original "Red Giant" question is that the Sun will expand to a red giant in less than 4 billion
years, after most of the core hydrogen is used (fused?). But, even before that, swelling and energy output
will increase to where life on Earth will be wiped out within 1 billion to 2 billion years from now, long
before the final expansion to a red giant. I have seen other models showing we have only about 600,000
years to be toasted, but I'll just have to wait and see which one is correct.
Quantitative Easing: The Federal Reserve’s End Game for the Dollar.
With a second round of "quantitative easing" underway, the U.S. Federal Reserve wants us to believe that it is
doing its duty as the nation's central bank – promoting maximum employment, keeping a lid on inflation and
making sure that long-term interest rates remain at reasonable levels.
This is known as the Fed's "dual mandate," since the inflation and interest-rate objectives are really the same
goal.
But here's a shocker: The Federal Reserve's real dual mandate is to enrich the banks the central bank is created
by and works for – and to cover Congress when its laws enrich banks at the expense of jobless American
taxpayers.
Understanding how quantitative easing works is simple. Understanding how banks and Congress are
manipulating this economic tool is just a tad more complicated. Understanding how quantitative easing will
impact your life – and your financial future – is just a matter of understanding the facts Quantitative
Easing Basics
The mechanics of quantitative easing are straightforward. For instance, the Federal Reserve can decide to
lower interest rates for any number of reasons, but it's usually to encourage borrowing and consumption to
stimulate the economy.
When the Fed decides to lower rates, it does so by reducing the so-called "Fed Funds" rate – the rate banks
charge each other for overnight loans.
The Fed doesn't just say what it wants the Fed Funds rate to be. Through what's known as "open-market
operations," the Fed actually lowers the rate to its target by purchasing U.S. Treasury securities from banks.
The cash the banks receive in return can then be lent out.
And when a lot of banks have money to lend, there is usually a general decline in the overall level of interest
rates in the broader marketplace.
Right now – because the Fed keeps purchasing short-term government securities – the Fed Funds rate is at
roughly 0.00% to 0.25% (about one-quarter of 1.00%). This time around, however, low marketplace interest
rates haven't been enough to stimulate the economy and generate reasonable growth. And those historically
low rates have done nothing to bring down the high rate of unemployment.
So, to further stimulate the economy and encourage employment and prevent deflation (falling prices) the Fed
is employing a second round of quantitative easing – a move the pundits refer to as "QE2," or even "QEII."
Regardless of what you call it, the maneuver simply means the central bank is buying still more government
securities, focusing this time on those with longer-term maturities.
The Skinny on the Central Bank
The Fed doesn't actually "print" money to buy any of these securities. Only the U.S. Treasury Department can
print money through the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing that it controls (Indeed, the Bureau of
Engraving's Web site address is most appropriate: http://www.moneyfactory.gov/).
The Fed pays for the securities it buys by electronically crediting the accounts of the primary dealers that sell
the central bank U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds. The "credits" are passed along to the primary dealers'
customers (other banks, securities broker-dealers, and financial institutions) who buy and sell their inventory to
the Fed through the primary dealers.
So, while the Fed doesn't actually print money, it does create money – thanks to the credits that it pays out
when it buys government or mortgage-backed securities.
The Federal Reserve is not a government entity. It is a private institution that functions at the courtesy of the
U.S. government. It is essentially the banker to all other U.S. banks. It is beholden to Congress, which can
amend the central bank's powers – or even strip them away. But it is permitted to operate with substantial
independence.
U.S. government officials and the nation's most powerful banks created the institution under the Federal
Reserve Act of 1913. Its creation – and even its early evolution – was fraught with intrigue and self-dealing.
Today, however, it's viewed as necessary by most, and a necessary evil by some. But it is necessary.
The Deep Game Dealers Play
Thanks to its independence, the Fed, theoretically, controls monetary policy without the undue influence of
politicians. While it might not be beholden to politicians in its role as a monetary policymaker, make no mistake:
The central bank is beholden to the banks that make up its system – which are also the banks from whose
ranks the Fed's positions of power and authority are filled.
Mechanically here's how the Fed is enriching its family of insiders. By keeping interest rates low for years – not
to mention by aiding and abetting an unregulated derivatives market – the central bank helped foster the
mortgage fiasco in the nation's prime and subprime mortgage markets.
Leveraged banks blew up and had to be rescued. The Fed did its part by opening its arms and offering
unlimited funds to keep favored institutions liquid enough to survive.
Courtesy of the 0.00% Fed-Funds target rate, the central bank gave those banks what were essentially nointerest/low-interest loans to buy risk-free Treasury securities across different maturities. And now, through the
miracle of quantitative easing, the Fed is buying those Treasuries back from the banks – thereby handing
these institutions handsome capital gains on top of the free interest the banks collected while holding the
securities.
The story is actually quite a bit more unseemly than it initially appears: There are currently 18 primary dealers
that have the sole authority to buy and sell directly with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which
conducts the Fed's open-market operations. All other banks and financial institutions – including such giant
money managers as PIMCO and BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), and private individuals who buy or sell at the
Fed – only do so as customers of the primary dealers.
The trading desk at the New York Fed is in constant touch with the primary dealers for input on markets and
demand for securities. The dealers, of course, are in constant touch with their giant customers – as well as
everyone else who matters.
The game goes like this …
Step I: Dealers and big institutional buyers of Treasuries all know the schedule of when the U.S. Treasury
auctions new bills, notes and bonds (it's published).
Step II: They drive down the price of issues coming to auction by shorting enough of existing securities whose
maturity they know is coming to market (it doesn't take a lot to lower prices, because all the dealers and
customers are standing aside and waiting to buy later).
Step III: Since the dealers have lowered the price and raised the yield on existing securities, market buyers put
in offers to buy from the Treasury close to the lowered prices for new securities.
Step IV: Once the new issues are bought at lowered prices, dealers and customers bid them up high enough
so that when the Fed comes in under its announced schedule of quantitative-easing purchases to buy different
maturity securities, the dealers sell back the now-inflated bonds held by them and their customers – netting a
tidy profit in the process.
Who is paying these higher prices and providing the windfall to the banks?
The U.S. taxpayers, of course (in other words, you are).
A Look Ahead
The Fed is using credits backed by the taxing power that the U.S. Treasury holds over American taxpayers to
hand the banks money to pay big bonuses and to start paying dividends again.
Why do they want to start paying dividends again? That's simple. By resuming dividend payouts, banks:
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Will see their stock prices rise.
Will have more equity.
Will be able to leverage themselves more.
So they can take bigger risks in order to pay out bigger bonuses – much of which will be paid out in …
you guessed it … each bank's stock.
That's the primary goal of QE2 -- enrich the banks. They're doing pretty well after the crisis they precipitated.
Meanwhile, the almost $2 trillion spent on the first round of quantitative easing did nothing to reduce
unemployment.
So while it's a given that the new round of QE2 will enrich banks, it's doubtful it will stimulate job growth.
There's another angle to this, too: The Nov. 3 announcement that QE2 would have the Fed buying $600 billion
of securities through the end of the second quarter of next year wouldn't be completely accurate. The Fed will
actually be buying nearly $900 billion worth of securities – if you factor in the reality that the central bank is
buying more securities with maturing bonds running off its balance sheet.
While Congress might jawbone about forcing the Fed to abandon the part of its dual mandate to seek to
maintain full employment, even as it attempts to keep inflation at bay, our elected leaders are just blowing
smoke.
Our congressional representatives – the majority of whom have taken ungodly sums from financial-services
industry lobbyists – are giving the banks what they paid for. And Congress likes the fact that if the Fed's QE2
initiative fails to cut U.S. unemployment, the blame can be passed to the central bank.
The sad-and-scary reality is that Congress has no policies to address fixing the economy or creating jobs. Our
elected officials spend most of their time trying to get elected and re-elected. Given the latest political division
in Congress, it looks like we're headed for more gridlock.
What's unspoken is that this scenario actually suits Congress pretty well. Because of their inability to create and
implement desperately needed bipartisan policies to fix what's wrong with our economy and government, our
congressional leaders get to punt policy decisions to their backroom masters, the Federal Reserve.
As long as the Fed is running this country, which it is, don't fool yourself: There will be no reduction in
unemployment, and no job growth; the only industry that our central bank cares about is the one that it serves –
the financial-services sector.
So if you're an investor who's currently "in" the market, here's how to bet: Banks will make a comeback,
inflation will be a big part of our future in order to monetize our insane budget deficits, and there will be lots
more trouble to come when the bubbles that the Fed is currently inflating finally pop.
With the Fed Out of "Bullets," A Stock Market Crash Will Really Hurt
November 16, 2012
By Shah Gilani, Capital Wave Strategist, Money Morning
Hang onto your hats. It's getting windy out there. Stuff is blowing all over the place.
Oh, that's not wind! That's a giant fan.
Well then, that must be why this "stuff" stinks so bad.
What stuff?
How about the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 1,000 points from multi-year highs reached
only a few weeks ago?
Or that the Dow has nosedived 5%, ever since the fateful morning last week when we found out that polls don't
mean anything, that Republicans don't have memories like elephants, and that Obamarama is still the game
we're playing?
Or that the Nasdaq – you know, that tech bellwether index that a lot of analysts believe is our economic canary
in the coalmine – is down 10.6% (technically in "correction" territory) since reaching its highs back in late
September? Or that it's down 5.5% since the elation, I mean election?
That's not only stinky stuff; it is scary stuff.
Supposedly the reason the market is going down is that we're nearing the fiscal cliff and may be heading over it.
But that outcome doesn't worry me.
To continue reading, please click here…
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Stock Market Today: As Fiscal Cliff Talks Begin, Stocks Reel in Fear
Don't Ignore These Stock Market Crash Risks
Stock Market Today: Why We'll Continue to "Drift Sideways"
Fiscal Cliff 2013: Pay Now or Pay Later
November 16, 2012
By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning
For all the talk about how Congress needs to avoid the fiscal cliff, few have pointed out that the U.S. economy
will suffer regardless.
The only question is the timing.
If Congress fails to act and America goes over the fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, 2013, the U.S. economy will, as many
have noted, quickly slip into a recession.
But if Congress does somehow agree to avert all or most of the impact of the fiscal cliff, it simply postpones the
pain for a few months or years.
And if Congress elects to postpone the fiscal cliff indefinitely, choosing to continue the federal government's
massive deficit spending in perpetuity, the federal debt will weigh more and more heavily on U.S. economic
growth as the years go on.
"That highlights lawmakers' dilemma," wrote The Wall Street Journal in a recent editorial. "Going off the cliff
will produce great pain in 2013 but lead to a more stable fiscal situation a decade on. Averting it will forestall
recession now but hamstring growth later."
How Fiscal Cliff 2013 Affects U.S. Economy
The fiscal cliff is political shorthand for the combination of spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to hit Jan.
1, 2013. It's the result of the expiration of the President Bush-era tax cuts combined with $1.2 trillion in
automatic reductions in federal spending made last summer as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling.
The consequences of going over the fiscal cliff or delaying it can be found in the latest report on the matter from
the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "Economic Effects of Policies Contributing to Fiscal Tightening in
2013."
And this latest report, which is different than the previous CBO projections, actually includes a clue as to how
Congress could decide to deal with the fiscal cliff before the end of the year.
SILVER UPDATE
The big question is not whether the silver price today will rise, but what happens long-term. Perhaps the
price explosion will not take place this week or even this year, but it is certainly inevitable and will likely
come soon. This dramatic increase in price will make any investment in silver, no matter how
small or large, look unbelievable.
Rarely does an investment opportunity present itself that has this kind of profit potential. Following are a
few of the reasons that silver prices are sure to take off.
Price Manipulation
There is much evidence that the current silver prices and other precious metals have long been
manipulated and coordinated in order to keep markets and there derivatives stable. Official investigations
by the CFTC continue to this day.
Officials face a major dilemma. Fear that letting prices settle based on physical supply and demand would
create a panic, jeopardizing the greater financial markets.
A few large bullion banks with particularly strong influence over politics and monetary policy (they actually
represent the Federal Reserve) continually overwhelm the long traders on the futures market by
accumulating short positions as the price rises.
Bright Object Near the Sun
Posted on November 2, 2012 by Jeff Mangum
Question: I took pictures of the Sun for two days consecutively (Oct 29, 2012- Oct 30, 2012) and saw
something next to it. I took pictures from different angles and it was still in the same place. (I even used a
different camera to make sure it had nothing to do with the camera and it was visible in the same place). I did
the same thing during the second day and the thing moved a considerable distance in just 24 hours. Could you
please tell me what is it?
Here are the pictures I took:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2q068eo&s=6 From: Oct 29, 2012
http://tinypic.com/r/240ylhc/6 From: Oct 30, 2012
Thank you!
Background:
I have a Master in Biology and now I’m studying medicine. One of my leisure activities is read on the internet a
lot of science & metaphysics related articles. I studied physics with a bright professor that knows a lot on
astronomy, but unfortunately, I can’t find him since I’m abroad to complete my studies.
Answer: Hard to say what the bright objects near the Sun might be in your photographs. The photo from
October 30 is the clearest case for a bright object near the Sun. The location of this object might be consistent
with the location of the planet Venus, which is about 34 degrees from the Sun at the moment and pretty bright
(magnitude -4). The bright object in your photo, though, appears to be too bright to be a planet. Also, the fact
that it moved so far in just one day suggests that it is “local”. So, I would say that the object in your photograph
is not astronomical. Reflections from weather balloons, aircraft, etc. are likely suspects.
Jeff Mangum
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2 Responses to Bright Object Near the Sun
1. Linda says:
November 3, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Today, Nov. 3rd 2012 I was out snapping pics of two pair of Bald Eagles floating on the wind current directly over my
house. I accidentally snapped a few shots straight into the sun and was surprised to see this “something”.
http://tinypic.com/m/fo26v9/3
I went out and took more pics. I took some from my front porch to see if it was a reflection from something in the
backyard.
http://tinypic.com/m/fo26va/3
Still there. Then I went out at dusk and snapped a few more.
http://tinypic.com/m/fo26vb/3
Please let me know if you find out what it is.
Linda
Reply
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Jeff Mangum says:
November 4, 2012 at 6:10 am
When one photographs the Sun, or any other intense source of light, aberrations in the optics of the camera one uses can
produce reflections which lead to “ghost” objects in pictures. I think that this is what you are seeing in these photographs.
A good test would be to take a picture of the Sun while blocking-out its light, which would eliminate the stray reflections
NOTE FROM RICHARD
After evaluating what is happening here, the lens flare is caused by the brilliance of the sun -- so bright that if
you're shooting through any pane of glass, a flare is bounced off the back side of the glass, reduced in size, and
ends up as a second sun in the frame. I also tried this with the GoPro Hero2 camera. In that case, the lens is such
a wide angle lens that you could see much of the front of the camera reflected in the back side of the welders
glass. The test was very revealing.
However, there is a shot in Watchers 5 where a guy put up a piece of red circular welders glass in front of his
camera. The second sun stayed in the same place, and didn't move. In that case, there actually appeared to be
something there. So, my test is not conclusive but indicates that lens flares can occur in ways people probably
don't expect
During the Eclipse
During the last total solar eclipse in 2012 a massive object appears between the moon and the sun
the object is four times the size of Earth.
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and the
Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun. This can happen only atnew moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in
conjunction as seen from Earth.
On 2012 November 13/14, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses
Earth’s southern Hemisphere. Over the course of 3.1 hours, the Moon’s umbra travels along a path
approximately 14,500 kilometres long covering 0.46% of Earth’s surface area.
Well, in 2010:
A 'mysterious dark companion' has been observed for the first time in a star system which has puzzled skywatchers since the 19th century.
Scientists taking close-up photographs of the Epsilon Aurigae during its eclipse, which happens every 27 years,
noticed the strange dark object's shadow on the star.
They were able to zoom in on the star, which is likely to be about 2000 light years away from our solar system,
using an instrument developed at the University of Michigan.
The object - the 'companion' - was assumed to be a smaller star, orbited by a thick disk of dust.
For more than 175 years, astronomers have known that Epsilon Aurigae - the fifth brightest star in the northern
constellation Auriga - is dimmer than it should be, given its mass.
They noticed its brightness dip for more than a year every few decades and surmised that it was part of a binary
system consisting of two objects, where one was invisible.
The new images support this theory, showing a geometrically thin, dark, dense but partially translucent cloud
passing in front of Epsilon Aurigae.
John Monnier, an associate professor at the University of Michigan's department of astronomy, said the images
depicted a system unlike any other known to scientists.
'This really shows that the basic paradigm was right, despite the slim probability,' he said.
'It kind of blows my mind that we could capture this. There's no other system like this known.
'On top of that, it seems to be in a rare phase of stellar life. And it happens to be so close to us. It's extremely
fortuitous.'
This is your BRAIN
Nothing is quite as satisfying as a yoga practice that's filled with movement. Whether you prefer an intense and sweaty vinyasa
practice, a gentle but deliberate Viniyoga practice, or something in between, all systems of hatha yoga provide a contented
afterglow for the same reason: You sync your movement with your breath. When you do, your mind stops its obsessive
churning and begins to slow down. Your attention turns from your endless to-do list toward the rhythm of your breath, and you
feel more peaceful than you did before you began your practice.
For many of us, accessing that same settled, contented state is more difficult to do in meditation. It's not easy to watch the mind
reveal its worries, its self-criticism, or its old memories. Meditation requires patience and—even more challenging for most
Westerners—time. So, why would you put yourself through the struggle?
Quite simply, meditation can profoundly alter your experience of life. Thousands of years ago the sage Patanjali, who compiled
the Yoga Sutra, and the Buddha both promised that meditation could eliminate the suffering caused by an untamed mind. They
taught their students to cultivate focused attention, compassion, and joy. And they believed that it was possible to change one's
mental powers and emotional patterns by regularly experiencing meditative states. Those are hefty promises.
But these days, you don't have to take their word for it. Western scientists are testing the wisdom of the masters, using new
technology that allows researchers to study how meditation influences the brain.
The current findings are exciting enough to encourage even the most resistant yogis to sit down on the cushion: They suggest
that meditation—even in small doses—can profoundly influence your experience of the world by remodeling the physical
structure of your brain. Read on to find out how, and then put each finding into practice with meditations by yoga teachers
Christopher Tompkins, Frank Jude Boccio, and Kate Vogt.
How Meditation Trains Your Brain
Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, Eileen Luders, a re-searcher in the Department of Neurology at the
University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, looks for evidence that meditation changes the physical structure of
the brain. Until recently, this idea would have seemed absurd. "Scientists used to believe that the brain reaches its peak in
adulthood and doesn't change—until it starts to decrease in late adulthood," Luders says. "Today we know that everything we
do, and every experience we have, actually changes the brain." Indeed, Luders finds several differences between the brains of
meditators and nonmeditators. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage in 2009, Luders and her colleagues compared the
brains of 22 meditators and 22 age-matched nonmeditators and found that the meditators (who practiced a wide range of
traditions and had between five and 46 years of meditation experience) had more gray matter in re-gions of the brain that are
important for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. Increased gray matter typically makes an area of the brain
more efficient or powerful at processing information. Luders believes that the increased gray matter in the meditators' brains
should make them better at controlling their attention, managing their emotions, and making mindful choices.
Why are there differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators? It's a simple matter of training. Neuroscientists
now know that the brain you have today is, in part, a reflection of the demands you have placed on it. People learning to juggle,
for example, develop more connections in areas of the brain that anticipate moving objects. Medical students undergoing
periods of intense learning show similar changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory. And
mathematicians have more gray matter in regions important for arithmetic and spatial reasoning.
More and more neuroscientists, like Luders, have started to think that learning to meditate is no different from learning mental
skills such as music or math. Like anything else that requires practice, meditation is a training program for the brain. "Regular
use may strengthen the connections between neurons and can also make new connections," Luders explains. "These tiny
changes, in thousands of connections, can lead to visible changes in the structure of the brain." Those structural changes, in turn,
create a brain that is better at doing whatever you've asked it to do. Musicians' brains could get better at analyzing and creating
music. Mathematicians' brains may get better at solving problems. What do meditators' brains get better at doing? This is where
it gets interesting: It depends on what kind of meditation they do.
Over the past decade, researchers have found that if you practice focusing attention on your breath or a mantra, the brain will
restructure itself to make concentration easier. If you practice calm acceptance during meditation, you will develop a brain that
is more resilient to stress. And if you meditate while cultivating feelings of love and compassion, your brain will develop in
such a way that you spontaneously feel more connected to others.
Improve Your Attention
New research shows that meditation can help you improve your ability to concentrate in two ways. First, it can make you better
at focusing on something specific while ignoring distractions. Second, it can make you more capable of noticing what is
happening around you, giving you a fuller perspective on the present moment.
Some of the most fascinating research on how meditation affects attention is being conducted by Antoine Lutz, PhD, an
associate scientist at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in
collaboration with Richard Davidson and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. Their work
has shown that concentration meditation, in which the meditator focuses complete attention on one thing, such as counting the
breath or gazing at an object, activates regions of the brain that are critical for controlling attention. This is true even among
novice meditators who receive only brief training. Experienced meditators show even stronger activation in these regions. This
you would expect, if meditation trains the brain to pay attention. But extremely experienced meditators (who have more than
44,000 hours of meditation practice) show less activation in these regions, even though their performance on attention tasks is
better. The explanation for this, in Lutz's view, is that the meditation training can eventually help reduce the effort it takes to
focus your attention. "This would be consistent with traditional accounts of progress in meditation practice. Sustaining focus
becomes effortless," Lutz says. This suggests that people can immediately enhance concentration by learning a simple
meditation technique, and that practice creates even more progress.
The researchers also looked at whether vipassana meditation training can improve overall attention. (Vipassana means "to see
things as they really are," and the meditation techniques are designed to increase focus, awareness, and insight.) Researchers
label our inability to notice things in our environment as "attentional blink." Most of us experience this throughout the day,
when we become so caught up in our own thoughts that we miss what a friend says to us and have to ask her to repeat it. A
more dramatic example would be a car accident caused by your thinking about a conversation you just had and not noticing that
the car in front of you has stopped. If you were able to reduce your attentional blink, it would mean a more accurate and
complete perception of reality—you would notice more and miss less.
To test whether meditation reduces attentional blink, participants had to notice two things occurring in rapid succession, less
than a second apart. The findings, published in PLoS Biology, reveal that the meditation training improved the participants'
ability to notice both changes, with no loss in accuracy.
What explained this improvement? EEG recordings—which track patterns of electrical activity in the brain, showing precise
moment-by-moment fluctuations in brain activation—showed that the participants allocated fewer brain resources to the task of
noticing each target. In fact, the meditators spent less mental energy no-ticing the first target, which freed up mental bandwidth
for noticing what came next. Paying attention literally became easier for the brain.
As a result, Lutz and his colleagues be-lieve that meditation may increase our control over our limited brain resources. To
anyone who knows what it's like to feel scattered or overwhelmed, this is an ap-pealing benefit indeed. Even though your
attention is a limited resource, you can learn to do more with the mental energy you already have.
Reduce Your Stress
Dhyana heyah tad vrttayah.Meditation removes disturbances of the mind. (Yoga Sutra II.11)
Research also shows that meditation can help people with anxiety disorders. Philippe Goldin, director of the Clinically Applied
Affective Neuroscience project in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, uses mindfulness meditation in his
studies. The general practice is to become aware of the present moment—by paying attention to sounds, your breath, sensations
in your body, or thoughts or feelings—and to observe without judgment and without trying to change what you notice.
Like most of us, the participants in Goldin's studies suffer from all sorts of disturbances of the mind—worries, self-doubt, stress,
and even panic. But people with anxiety disorders feel unable to escape from such thoughts and emotions, and find their lives
overtaken by them. Goldin's research shows that mindfulness meditation offers freedom for people with anxiety, in part by
changing the way the brain responds to negative thoughts.
In his studies, participants take an eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction. They meet once weekly for a class
and practice on their own for up to an hour a day. The training includes mindfulness meditation, walking meditation, gentle
yoga, and relaxation with body awareness as well as discussions about mindfulness in everyday life.
Before and after the intervention, participants have their brains scanned inside an fMRI (or functional MRI) machine, which
looks at brain activity rather than the structure of the brain, while completing what Goldin calls "self-referential processing"—
that is, thinking about themselves. An fMRI scanner tracks which brain areas consume more energy during meditation and,
therefore, which regions are more active.
Ironically, the brain-scanning sessions could provoke anxiety even in the calmest of people. Participants must lie immobilized
on their back with their head held in the brain scanner. They rest their teeth on dental wax to prevent any head movement or
talking. They are then asked to reflect on different statements about themselves that appear on a screen in front of their face.
Some of the statements are positive, but many of them are not, such as "I'm not OK the way I am," or "Something's wrong with
me." These are exactly the kinds of thoughts that plague people with anxiety.
The brain scans in Goldin's studies show a surprising pattern. After the mindfulness intervention, participants have greater
activity in a brain network associated with processing information when they reflect on negative self-statements. In other words,
they pay more attention to the negative statements than they did before the intervention. And yet, they also show decreased
activation in the amygdala—a region associated with stress and anxiety. Most important, the participants suffered less. "They
reported less anxiety and worrying," Goldin says. "They put themselves down less, and their self-esteem improved."
Goldin's interpretation of the findings is that mindfulness meditation teaches people with anxiety how to handle distressing
thoughts and emotions without being overpowered by them. Most people either push away unpleasant thoughts or obsess over
them—both of which give anxiety more power. "The goal of meditation is not to get rid of thoughts or emotions. The goal is to
become more aware of your thoughts and emotions and learn how to move through them without getting stuck." The brain scans
suggest that the anxiety sufferers were learning to witness negative thoughts without going into a full-blown anxiety response.
Research from other laboratories is confirming that mindfulness meditation can lead to lasting positive changes in the brain. For
example, a recent study by Massachusetts General -Hospital and Harvard University put 26 highly stressed adults through an
eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction that followed the same basic format as Goldin's study. Brain scans
were taken before and after the intervention, along with participants' own reports of stress. The participants who reported
decreased stress also showed decreases in gray -matter density in the amygdala. Previous research had revealed that trauma and
chronic stress can enlarge the amygdala and make it more reactive and more connected to other areas of the brain, leading to
greater stress and anxiety. This study is one of the first documented cases showing change ocurring in the opposite direction—
with the brain instead becoming less reactive and more resilient.
Together, these studies provide exciting evidence that small doses of mental training, such as an eight-week mindfulness course,
can create important changes in one's mental well-being.
Feel More Compassionate
Maitryadisu balani The cultivation of friendliness creates inner strength. (Yoga Sutra III.24)
We typically think of our emotional range as something that is fixed and unchanging—a reflection of the personality we're born
with. But research is revealing the possibility that we may be able to cultivate and increase our ability to feel the emotional state
of compassion. Researchers have found that feeling connected to others is as learnable as any other skill. "We are trying to
provide evidence that meditation can cultivate compassion, and that you can see the change in both the person's behavior and
the function of the brain," Lutz says.
So what does compassion look like in the brain? To find out, Lutz and his colleagues compared two groups of -meditators—one
group whose members were experienced in compassion meditation, and the other a group whose members were not—and gave
them the same instructions: to generate a state of love and compassion by thinking about someone they care about, extend those
feelings to others, and finally, to feel love and compassion without any specific object. As each of the participants meditated inside the fMRI brain scanners, they were occasionally interrupted by spontaneous and unexpected human sounds—such as a
baby cooing or a woman screaming—that might elicit feelings of care or concern.
All of the meditators showed emotional responses to the sounds. But the more experienced compassion meditators showed a
larger brain response in areas important for processing physical sensations and for emotional responding, particularly to sounds
of distress. The researchers also observed an increase in heart rate that corresponded to the brain changes. These findings
suggest that the meditators were having a genuine empathic response and that the experienced meditators felt greater
compassion. In other words, compassion meditation appears to make the brain more naturally open to a connection with others.
These meditation techniques may have benefits beyond the experience of spontaneous compassion. A study by psychology
professor Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of
Michigan, found that a seven-week lovingkindness meditation course also increased the participants' daily experience of joy,
gratitude, and hope. The more participants meditated, the better they felt. Participants also reported a greater sense of selfacceptance, social support, purpose in life, and life satisfaction, while experiencing fewer symptoms of illness and depression.
This study provides strong evidence that chipping away at the illusion of separation can open us up to a far more meaningful
connection to life.
Commit to Change
As the evidence for the benefits of meditation grows, one of the most important outstanding questions is, How much is enough?
Or, from the perspective of most beginning meditators, How little is enough to see positive change?
Researchers agree that many of the benefits happen early on. "Changes in the brain take place at the very beginning of
learning," Luders says. And many studies show change in a matter of weeks, or even minutes, among inexperienced meditators.
But other studies suggest that experience matters. More practice leads to greater changes, both in the brain and in a meditator's
mental states. So while a minimal investment in meditation can pay off for your well-being and mental clarity, committing to
the practice is the best way to experience the full benefits.
Luders, who was a lapsed meditator when she started her research, had such a positive experience being around seasoned
meditators that she was motivated to come back to the practice. "It's never too late," Luders says. She suggests starting small
and making meditation a regular habit. "The norm in our study was daily sessions, 10 to 90 minutes. Start with 10."
If you do, you may discover that meditation has benefits beyond what science has revealed. Indeed, it will take time for science
to catch up to the wisdom of the great meditation teachers. And even with the advances in brain technology, there are changes
both subtle and profound transmitted only through direct experience. Fortunately, all you need to get started is the willingness to
sit and be with your own body, breath, and mind.
Practice:
Lovingkindness Meditation, by Kate Vogt
Sit comfortably in a place where you won't be disturbed. Take three to five quiet breaths. Gently close your eyes.
Imagine the horizon spanning through your chest with a radiant sun rising in your innermost center—your heart. As though
being melted by the solar warmth, release tension in your shoulders and across your throat. Soften your forehead and rest your
attention inward on the light deep within. Take seven to 10 smooth, even breaths.
As you inhale, invite the glow from your heart to expand toward the inner surface of the body. With each exhale, let the light
recede. Take another seven to 10 peaceful breaths. Inhaling, invite the light to touch the parts of you that interact with the
world—your eyes and ears, the voice center in your throat, the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet. Exhaling, feel your
light shine more clearly. As you continue to inhale and exhale, silently say: "I radiate friendliness for those who are happy,
com-passion for those who are unhappy, equanimity toward all." Continue until your attention wavers. Then, sit quietly for
several minutes.
When you feel complete, place your palms together in front of your heart and bow your head. Release the backs of your hands
to your thighs and lift your head. Gently open your eyes to return to the horizon of the world.
Mindfulness Meditation, by Frank Jude Boccio
Mindfulness requires concentration, but rather than concentrate on any one object, we concentrate on the moment and
whatever is present in that moment.
To begin, take a comfortable seat. Bring attention to your breath by placing your awareness at your belly and feeling it rise and
fall. This will help you tune in to the sensorial presence of the body. Once you feel settled, widen your awareness to include all
the sensations in your body as well as any thoughts or feelings.
Imagine yourself as a mountain. Some thoughts and feelings will be stormy, with thunder, lightning, and strong winds. Some
will be like fog or dark, ominous clouds. Inhaling, note "mountain." Exhaling, note "stable." Use the breath to focus on the
present moment; cultivate the ability to weather the storm. If you find yourself swept up in a thought or emotion, notice it and
simply return to the breath. The key is to pay attention to the ever-changing process of thinking rather than to the contents of
your thoughts. As you begin to see that they are indeed just thoughts, they will begin to lose their power. You will no longer
believe everything you think! Continue to watch and become mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations for five to 20
minutes.