Artificial Leaf Capable Of Producing Oxygen Could Help Us With Long-Term Space Travel

Thanks to graduate student Julian Melchiorri, long-term space travel could soon be a reality. Melchiorri worked with Dezeen and MINI Frontiers to produce the Silk Leaf, an invention capable of sustaining life.

The Silk Leaf is a synthetic biological leaf that will absorb water and carbon dioxide and produce oxygen similar to the way a plant does. It was developed through Melchiorri’s Design Engineering course in collaboration with the Tufts University silk lab. As Gizmodo shares, the leaves consist of chloroplasts suspended in a cast made out of silk proteins.

“I extracted chloroplasts from plant cells and placed them inside this silk protein. As an outcome I have the first photosynthetic material that is living and breathing as a leaf does,” Melchiorri said.

The designer notes that he was inspired from the beginning to build off of nature’s own system and take advantage of a proven method.

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The cool thing about the invention  is that it won’t just be handy for exploring the far reaches of the galaxy, it could be used on Earth to purify air and produce more oxygen.

What are your thoughts on this intriguing innovation? Comment below and share this article! 

Article inspired by TrueAcivist.Com

Research Shows Meditation Restructures Your Brain in Less Than 8 Weeks

What-is-Transcendental-MeditationResearcher and neuroscientist at Harvard, Sara Lazar, have found that your brain structure changes noticeably after less than 8 weeks of meditation. They saw no changes in the control group.

Meditation has been found to increase the brain size – larger volumes of grey matter specifically – in the right orbito-frontal cortex, left temporal gyrus and significantly larger volumes in the right hippocampus.

These areas are especially important in tasks associated with attention, emotional regulation and mental flexibility.

Meditation has also been found to decrease the size of the amygdala. The amygdala is associated with fear and stress responses. Continue reading

Tippi: The Incredible Girl Who Grew up In the Heart of Africa

Little Tippi is the real-life Mowgli, a child who made her home with the animals just as Rudyard Kipling’s young hero did in The Jungle Book. Showcased in her new book, “Tippi: My Book of Africa”, these magical images chronicle the extraordinary life of a girl living freely in the African wilderness, sharing a unique bond with some of Africa’s most beautiful wildlife.

Born in Windhoek, Namibia in 1990, Tippi Benjamine Okanti Degre travelled through Africa for 10 years with her French parents, wildlife photographers Sylvie Robert and Alain Degré.

From sitting on the back of an ostrich, lying peacefully with a lion cub or cuddling with a caracal, these amazing pictures show an unusual bond and tranquility between man and beast.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY SYLVIE ROBERT / BARCROFT MEDIA LTD. FROM TIPPI MY BOOK OF AFRICA
UK Office, London.
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Still Drinking Milk? This Doctor Speaks a Truth You Need to Hear

Do you still drink milk? The experiencing of drinking it has changed drastically from the past. The act of owning a farm with your own cows, occasionally drinking their milk is something many of us don’t experience. Most of us buy processed, sterilized milk from companies that pump out gallon after gallon.
Health aside, imagine the cow you’re drinking the milk from. It’s locked up in horrible conditions, constantly producing milk for the ever-buying consumer. The animal we’re drinking the fluid from is in pain, the source of the milk is hurting; and we are putting that into our bodies.  

8 Powerful Images From Around the World Show The Damage We’ve Done To Our Planet

Our world is beautiful; we’ve filled it with magic, life, love and unfortunately, a lot of pollution and garbage. These pictures from around the world capture the problems we’ve created for our planet. These are massive problems that have been going on for so long, that it seems like we’ve forgotten about them.

Even seeing these pictures isn’t enough to compel us into action. The good news is it’s never too late to take action – it would have been a lot of effective 10 years ago, but we can still remedy our global mistakes. It takes a passion so fiery that we stop at nothing to reverse these effects – and it’s going to take all of us to make it work.

planet-pollution-overdevelopment-overpopulation-overshoot-12A landscape of trash in a Bangladesh landfill.

planet-pollution-overdevelopment-overpopulation-overshoot-10This horrible looking machine straight out of a nightmare at the Tagebau Hambach strip mine in Germany.

planet-pollution-overdevelopment-overpopulation-overshoot-11 Continue reading

4 Ways to Unlock the Doorway To Your Subconscious

The subconscious rules so much of our lives from behind the scenes. From the moment that the sperm meets the egg and begins to process of forming a life, you are governed by the subconscious- your mothers and your own. The subconscious is the force that tells your heart how to beat, when to blink, when to feel hungry.

All of your physiological functions are the work of your deeper mind. It also has a huge impact on how we perceive the world. The subconscious works very quickly, analyzing the world around you all the time, finding the patterns and making assumptions that you realize consciously. In metaphysical terms, the subconscious is the force that can make or break our creative and spiritual processes. In many ways, the subconscious is a truer reflection of your soul – it is the foundation upon which the ego and the conscious mind our built. So how do we make it listen?

This is not an easy answer. There is not one method that will make everyone’s subconscious change its old patterns to conform to the new paradigm that we wish to consciously install. I have decided to explore the methods that are either the most popular or the most effective to me personally that I do not see being explored as much as I think they should. Try them out, experiment and explore, and you will find something that works for you so long as you maintain an open mind.

1- Meditation and Visualization

meditation-brain-2Chances are, we all have heard about the many many benefits of meditation, so I won’t go on beating this dead horse for too long. All you need to know for these purposes is that when you meditate you blur the boundary of the conscious and unconscious and begin a sort of integration process.

The reason we focus on our breathing so heavily when we meditate is that it is one of the actions that can be controlled by both the conscious and subconscious minds. Continue reading