Mother nature never lets us down, proving time and time again that everything we will always need is right in front of us, if we would only dig a little further.

In a recent media briefing, at the Australian Science and Medical Centre, Dr Justin Chalker from Flinders University announced that they have developed a “A brand new, dirt cheap, non-toxic polymer that literally sucks mercury out of water and soil is set to become a game changer in the battle against one of the world’s most reviled pollutants.”

The material is made from the industrial waste products sulphur and limonene a colorless liquid hydrocarbon extracted from the peel of citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges and is very inexpensive to produce given the amount of global waste. Making it affordable to produce in large-scale environmental clean ups.

Mercury contamination plagues many areas of the world, affecting both food and water supplies and creating a serious need for an efficient and cost-effective method to trap this mercury,” says Dr Chalker.

“Until now, there has been no such method, but the new sulphur-limonene polysulfide addresses this urgent need.”

Japan, known to be one of the countries who are at high risk of this toxic chemical, many contracting Minamata disease a neurological disorder that causes numbness in the hands and feet, muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision and damage to hearing and speech upon severe exposure to mercury.

This toxin has significant implications for human health, whether ingested through eating contaminated fish or contracted through the skin, mercury exposure is proven to damage the central nervous system. Those at risk in particular are pregnant women and children.

As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognized in Japan as having Minamata disease (1,784 of whom had died).

“So not only is this new polymer good for solving the problem of mercury pollution, but it also has the added environmental bonus of putting this waste material to good use while converting them into a form that is much easier to store so that once the material is ‘full’ it can easily be removed and replaced.” states Dr. Chalker

Dr. Chalkers polymer has also been found to remove toxic metals from water even in small amounts as the dark red material turns yellow when it absorbs mercury.

by LJ Vanier

Once again science fiction is becoming science faction, as the robot revolution is on the rise. Not only are they taking our jobs and driving our cars, now they can read our minds!

Using a mathematical algorithm that can predict what we are about to do, bio engineers in the US have developed a robot that can calculate our intentions based on prior activity even when an action is interrupted.

So for example, if you are reaching for a cup of coffee on your desk, but your hand collides with an unexpected object that prevents you from taking hold of the coffee, someone else would be able to make a fairly accurate guess of your intended motion, but could a robot?

In order to test this theory, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, experimented with this exact scenario.  Continue reading →

The river water in the farming region of Bujama in Lima, Peru, is so heavily polluted with metals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium, that growing vegetables in the area have become heavily contaminated.

Due to this crisis, engineering students at Lima’s University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) have created a revolutionary invention that sucks the water from the air to grow vegetables. The students have dubbed their invention the “air orchard”.

This ingenious device is fitted with 10 de-humidifiers that filter water from the air into a drip irrigation system connected to an urban farm on the ground below.

One week into operation the Air Orchard produced 2,448 fresh heads of lettuce, that are not only free from pollution, but also the pressures of the country’s current water crisis.

Students will be handing out their crops to the locals in an effort to promote their new sustainable urban farm.

by LJ Vanier, Team Spirit

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30390041

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman, best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.; CEO and largest shareholder of Pixar Animation Studios. Yet what many people may not know is that in 2005 at a commencement speech at Stanford, he gave one of the most inspiring speeches ever. This is where most of Steve’s quotes originate from, and if it wasn’t for that day, we wouldn’t know the depth of this wonderful man.

1. Never Settle in Life

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

2. Do What You Love

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it”

3. It’s Not About Money

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time” Continue reading →

Do you remember what it was like to be a kid with boundless amounts of energy? You would run around a field just for fun, flailing your arms enjoying yourself tremendously, caught up in the simple pleasure of just… being alive!

What happened to that?

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case as we get older. Not very often do we see adults running through a field in this manner and if we did it would look pretty out-of-place.. Too bad. There wouldn’t be any shame in it!

Some say, that over time our bodies seem to just get worn down, yet on the contrary, I know both men and women twice my age who are at the peak of physical fitness, leading me to believe that it’s not so much about a ‘physical breakdown’ as it is a mental and emotional one.

When we think that our bodies are old, worn down, and beaten up, then naturally our bodies will appear in the same manner. And when we can change our thinking, love ourselves more and appreciate our bodies, then these five amazing things will happen.

1. Instant Energy Boost

Changing our thinking pattern sets off an immediate chemical reaction in the body; flooding you with what feels like added energy. This is because it is proven that our attitudes about life direct our thinking and our thoughts produce emotions. Quite simply, when you think better, you will feel better! Continue reading →

If you practice any type of meditation regime, then you are aware of the historical account of Buddha, sitting in the lotus position in front of a large Buddhi or Fig Tree with a snake wrapped around his body and the snake’s head resting atop of him. This account not only is a true story, but encompasses many other religious teachings on both a physical and spiritual level.

A Kundalini awakening signifies a revolutionary step into expanded consciousness, as the coiled serpent energy that resides at the base of your spine is activated and begins to make its ascent upwards towards the crown chakra.

Once the Kundalini is awoken, its aim is to ignite all of the chakras in the body. Flooding the practitioner with immense energy and allowing the seeker to break down all preconceived notion of duality; giving them the ability to understand and experience ‘that in which is within, so is without’. Meaning, that everything we experience is a product of our own imagination and that, we are in complete control of our universe, because we are the universe.

The activation of the crown chakra signifies that the kundalini has completed its travel, surging upwards into the mind and will be experienced as the comprehension of seeing a large fig or buddhi tree. The mind is now firing on all cylinders and the brain acts just as this large tree, within its circuits.

This projection of consciousness, appears to be an external happening, as if being taken somewhere out-of-body and arriving at the tree of life or better known in the shamanic practice as “The World Tree”. However, the best kept secret is that it’s quite literally, all in your mind and this because the universe is mental.

The task is then to hold this level of activation and to exist in the realm of consciousness, where no thought or experience is neither inwards or outwards, but all is one. Continue reading →