The Green Lynx Spider, Peucetia Viridans, photographed in Pasadena, California. They can be found in mostly the southern United States, in some parts in Northern California, Central America, the West Indies, and Venezuela. It is known to aggressively attack it’s prey (not humans but in the rare case it does bite it is painful but harmless) and perhaps got [...]
The human heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood each day throughout the body. It weighs less than a pound. It has 3 outer layers and 4 chambers and beats 100,000 times each day. Your heart beats with enough strength to shoot blood a distance of 30 feet. Your left lung is smaller than your right [...]
Daydreams happen while you are in an alpha wave state, a more relaxed state of mind. You use stored information like memories and emotions to create ideas and associations that are the blueprint for your daydream. The past, present and future become interchangeable and you can have “fantasy” do-overs of events. (I am so witty and [...]
I met Faith Coloccia at a vegan Friendsgiving (Friends + Thanksgiving = Friendsgiving) feast out in the desert many years ago. Faith studied art at Otis and went on to play in the experimental sound band, Everylovely Lightningheart. She currently lives on Vashon Island where she just finished a full length record (as the band Mamiffer) called We Speak in [...]
Human beings use methods of thought (heuristics) which give quick sometimes good answers but which also create systematic errors called biases. Cognitive biases are psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions – first introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. There are four main groups: social, memory, decision making and probability/belief biases. Cognitive [...]
Listen to acoustic biologist Katy Payne speak about the importance of listening, the constantly evolving songs of whales and the immensely emotional lives of elephants on Whale Songs and Elephant Loves from Speaking of Faith. Some things: Whale songs are made up of a distinct sequence of groans, moans, roars, sighs and high pitched squeals that may [...]
LSST is the large synoptic survey telescope that will be built on Cerro Pachón in Chile, and is scheduled to commence operations in 2016. Its camera has, no joke, 3200 megapixels and will be taking a pair of exposures every 37 seconds every night for 10 years. The telescope will be capturing images covering [...]
La Tierra de la Culebra is a two-acre art park in Highland Park, home to a sculptural 500 foot long serpent (La Culebra), revolving mural panels, a 150 tree urban forest and gardens, incised ziggurat, sundial, pond, sculptural amphitheater, and more, all of which are used for youth arts programming, cultural festivals, art classes and building [...]
Bread is good, right? Let me introduce you to Benjamin Tugwell – bread maker for the restaurant Bastide. Now let me tell you that Ben’s bread is heaven – Gilda and I were lucky enough to sample a tasting menu of breads which had us begging for more! Seriously, being without Ben’s bread is [...]
“I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors.” (Carl Jung) I’ve always been suspiciously enthralled by Carl Jung’s idea of the Collective Unconscious, which states that as human beings, we are all connected through an [...]