by itninja, AnonHQ

by Amanda Froelich, True Activist

The whales’ deaths are symbolic of humanity’s shocking disregard for marine life.

In January, 29 sperm whales were found stranded on shores around the North Sea, an area that is too shallow for the marine wildlife. Only recently were details of the animals’ necropsy released. However, scientists were deeply disturbed by what they found in the animals’ stomachs.

According to a press release from Wadden Sea National Park in Schleswig-Holstein, many of the whales had stomachs FULL of plastic debris, including a 13-meter-long fishing net, a 70 cm piece of plastic from a car and other pieces of plastic litter.

Some suggest that the animals thought the items were food, such as squid, which is their main staple. Others, however, believe that the travesty is largely a result of humanity’s shocking disregard for marine life, which has resulted in an overabundance of plastic in the oceans.

Said Robert Habeck, environment minister for the state of Schleswig-Holstein:

Researchers have worked out how to make matter from pure light and are drawing up plans to demonstrate the feat within the next 12 months.

The theory underpinning the idea was first described 80 years ago by two physicists who later worked on the first atomic bomb. At the time they considered the conversion of light into matter impossible in a laboratory.

But in a report published on Sunday, physicists at Imperial College London claim to have cracked the problem using high-powered lasers and other equipment now available to scientists.

“We have shown in principle how you can make matter from light,” said Steven Rose at Imperial. “If you do this experiment, you will be taking light and turning it into matter.”

The scientists are not on the verge of a machine that can create everyday objects from a sudden blast of laser energy. The kind of matter they aim to make comes in the form of subatomic particles invisible to the naked eye.

Take a deep breath.

The odds are good that you have been on the receiving end of the aforementioned recommendation more than once during your life. The odds are also good that, at least initially, this respiratory admonishment had the opposite effect from its calming intention.

No matter how you feel about the deep breath it is a folk remedy that has stood the test of time. But is there any scientific basis for the proposed stress-relieving effects of a slow, deep breath?

As you have likely surmised from the title of this article, there is robust scientific evidence for the benefits of mindful breathing. Let’s begin with an exercise and then delve into the physiology behind your breathing.

We cook, therefore we are. Over the millennia, humankind – hardly content to eat plants, animals and fungi raw – has created a smorgasbord of cuisines.

Yet for all our sophistication in the kitchen, the scientific understanding of how we taste food could still use some time in the oven. Dating back to ancient Greece and China, the sensation of taste has historically been described as a combination of a handful of distinct perceptions. Western food research, for example, has long been dominated by the four "basic tastes" of sweet, bitter, sour and salty.

In recent decades, however, molecular biology and other modern sciences have dashed this tidy paradigm. For example, Western science now recognizes the East's umami (savory) as a basic taste. But even the age-old concept of basic tastes is starting to crumble.