Yoda Sutras: Concourse No.38

Series 1

V - 2: You Carry the Seed

Mind is a tangled web.

Use it to catch the world.

Try to comprehend the infinite complexity of it all…

…elegantly embedded in the fabric of space and time.

Open your eyes in amazement.

Be Aware.

See.

Cosmology:

Dark Energy Clues

A new cosmic crowd has captured the distance and heavyweight titles for galaxy clusters discovered deep in the universe. The record-breaker sits billions of light-years from Earth and weighs about a thousand times the mass of the Milky Way. A team of astronomers first spotted the massive cluster, dubbed 2XMM J083026+524133, when scrutinizing data from the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton space telescope. Optical images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey established that the light could not be coming from a nearby galaxy in that particular cosmic region. So the team took a deep field exposure with the Large Binocular Telescope at the Mt. Graham International Observatory near Safford, Ariz. The cluster appeared and was calculated to be 7.7 billion light-years from Earth. The previous record-holding cluster sits only 3.5 billion light-years away and weighs slightly less than a thousand Milky Ways. The new cluster, at its great distance and with its mass can only be explained by the existence of dark energy, according to the researchers. Dark energy is an unexplained force that accelerates the expansion of the universe. Without this force nearby clusters should be much more massive than those that are billions of light-years away. Distant clusters should be less massive because they had less time to conglomerate. However, the ‘neighboring’ Coma Cluster and this new, distant cluster actually seem to have comparable masses. The discovery therefore adds an important data point in the study of galaxy clusters, which help astronomers test cosmological models that include dark energy. The strength of dark energy at various cosmic times can be determined if astronomers compare the number of massive clusters found at different distances. But far-off, massive clusters are rare, and XMM-Newton scans too little of the sky to find them. So astronomers must wait until 2011 for the launch of eROSITA, a German X-ray telescope, to scan the entire sky for the predicted 100 or so remaining deep-space, cluster heavyweights.

Think.

Medical Research:

Radioactive Missiles on HIV

Learn.

It worked for treating cancer; now researchers have found they can send dollops of lethal radiation directly into HIV-infected cells using radioactive antibodies. So far the technique only works in mice, but investigators hope they can extend their proof-of-concept to a treatment capable of destroying all of the infected cells in a person's body under some circumstances. Antiretroviral drugs keep HIV at bay but do not kill the virus. Instead they stop it from reproducing and let the immune system clear out infected cells. Researchers reasoned they could kill these cells directly and with minimal harm to the rest of the body if they could make radioactive isotopes cluster around the cells. So a team linked radioactive bismuth 213 and rhenium 188 to antibodies designed to stick to two HIV proteins (gp41 and gp120) present on the surface of infected cells. To see if the antibodies would home in on the offending cells, they injected the compound into mice that contained human blood cells infected with HIV. The compound appeared to work safely: the treated mice had less than half the quantity of infected cells that their untreated counterparts did, and the animals suffered collateral damage to healthy blood cells only at the highest antibody dose. In principle, the technique could supplement antiretroviral therapy for a brief time, especially very early in an infection before the immune response has kicked in. This is the type of treatment technology that gives one hope it might be possible to eliminate the virus.

Imagine.

Understand.

Artificial Intelligence:

Resilient Robot

When a person stubs his toe, he compensates by favoring his other leg. More dramatically, if he loses use of both his legs, he can still crawl to get from point A to point B. Now a robot shaped like a four-legged starfish can do the same. Designed at Cornell University, the nine-piece device can advance toward a goal even after incurring damage. In the past, robots attempting to recover from damage would have attempted upward of hundreds of thousands of movements in an inefficient trial-and-error process designed to overcome injury. Now the researchers programmed their robot to carefully select its actions so that it makes as few movements as possible. Using an "actuation-sensation" system, the robot runs through a number of possibilities before deciding what to do. In its electronic brain, the robot will perform a random five-second movement—such as lifting its left leg and then lifting its right leg. It will then plug that movement into 15 randomly chosen models, which are essentially 15 guesses as to how the robot is put together. It will then process all the results of performing the particular action in each model—one may predict that it will cause the robot to tilt left, for instance; another may indicate the machine will tilt right. Finally, the robot performs the action. The researchers had the robot go through the algorithm when it was in tip-top shape, and found that its chosen mode of movement was to generate enough momentum to throw its body forward, somewhat like an inchworm would. When the researchers severed one of its limbs, it hobbled forward instead. Right now, the robot isn't exactly ready for any operation that is time sensitive. But the researchers are confident that in the future, the robot could run through its algorithm much faster.

Explore.

Investigate.

Experiment.

Ecology: Temperate Zone Forest Fires

Climate models suggest that forest fires drive global warming by releasing greenhouse gases. The resulting climate change then lengthens the forest fire season and increases the number of fires each year, thereby pumping more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and further exacerbating atmospheric warming. But a new study says that despite emitting heat-trapping methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, fires in temperate zone (or boreal) forests may actually cool the climate significantly, because they leave behind a landscape that reflects sunlight. Researchers measured the amount of radiation being absorbed and reflected by an area in central Alaska's Donnelly Flats that was ravaged by a fire in 1999. They found that the burning boreal forest immediately released large amounts of greenhouse gases. These gases absorb the sun's radiation and trap heat in the atmosphere, thereby causing warming in the first year after the fire. Black ash from the blaze fell on snow and sea ice, which soaked up additional solar radiation. During the spring following the fire, however, the researchers noted that the area had fewer trees and that the exposed snow reflected more sunlight, slightly offsetting the increased amount of absorbed energy. As the area recovered from the fire in the following years, deciduous birch and aspen trees replaced the charred conifers. In summer, the bright green leaves reflected more light compared with the darker spruce needles of the prefire forest. In winter, because the new trees had lost their leaves, the snow-covered ground was exposed and reflected more sunlight. Using satellite images of nearby areas scarred from fires over the past eight decades, the researchers measured how the reflectivity of a fire-ravaged landscape changes over time. In the 80 years following the fire, the researchers predict that the surface reflection will cancel the impact of greenhouse gases initially emitted from the fire and, while causing local cooling, the fire would have no net effect on the global climate.

Analyze.

Know.

Study.

Genetics:

Edible Cotton Seeds

Even if one were to be comfortable with the idea of eating cotton, its seeds contain the harmful toxin gossypol that is known to cause low potassium levels in the blood and is associated with malfunctioning kidneys. Researchers at Texas A&M University have now discovered a method to grow cotton plants that do not produce gossypol in their seeds, a finding that they estimate could supply up to 500 million people per year with a high-protein food source. For every kilogram of fiber the cotton plant produces, it also provides 1.65 kilograms of seeds (22 percent of each seed consists of a high quality protein). But the gossypol's appearance in the seeds relegates them to feed for multistomached animals like cows. Previous attempts at blocking gossypol production in cotton targeted glands throughout the plant—but that allowed pests and viral visitors to overrun it, because the toxin's presence in the plant's floral tissues and foliage serve to protect it. The Texas A&M team looked to RNAi technology to silence the gene responsible for the production of gossypol in the cottonseed. In RNAi, researchers insert a DNA construct into a genome, which when transcribed yields a double-stranded piece of RNA, a potent trigger for silencing a specific gene. This auxiliary strand of RNA gets cut into smaller pieces, which effectively cut off the production of a target protein. For the cotton plant, the researchers targeted the enzyme δ-cadinene synthase with a construct taken from a wild, upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) and a gene promoter that was highly specific to the seed. In the first generation of transgenic plants, the researchers found as much as a 99 percent reduction in gossypol. RNAi does not knock out a gene's activity completely. But the researchers have been able to bring down gossypol below a level considered safe. The team tested the levels of gossypol in other parts of the plant and found that they were at levels comparable with unaltered specimens. This method keeps the silencing effect from spreading to other tissues outside of the seed.

Innovate.

Ponder.

Perceive.

Create.

Nanotechnology: Shrinking the Nanotube

Penetrate.

As it is, nanotubes are tiny. But researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a way to make these carbon structures even smaller. The size of the tubes, which are used in mass and chemical sensors as well as transistors and oscillators, imparts properties that allow for more exacting performance—for instance, the ability to oscillate at higher frequencies or improved conductivity. Previous attempts to shrink nanotubes involved irradiating the tiny structures with electrons. This bombardment would cause defects due to mass loss—turning the smooth pipe effectively into Swiss cheese. In the new method, the Berkeley researchers wanted to take advantage of this mass loss, so they heated a tube by pumping current through it while simultaneously irradiating it. The amount of heat going through the nanotube—its temperature rising to thousands of degrees—nearly melts it into a liquid. Although defects are made in the walls of the structure, the atoms, being in a near-liquid state, rearrange to fill the spaces in a process called annealing. The tube can nearly rearrange itself into its most stable shape, which is its strongest one. The electrical contacts at either end of the nanotube are fixed and unharmed, and the scientists monitor progress using a transmitting electron microscope. The researchers have shrunk one nanotube from 21.5 nanometers in diameter to 0.9 nanometer. The length of time the process takes depends on the amount of current used and the irradiation time. The researchers have been able to shrink a nanotube in 30 minutes, although the process could go faster or slower.

Wonder…

But Beware!

Don't get caught in the mighty maze of your own mind.

_________Transcend._________

Atha Yodanushasanam

Now begins the teaching of Yoda.

Drop more and more mind, and minding, and become more and more aware and alert. Bring yourself together in the moment.

The reality was always there, you were not there. It is not the truth which has to be sought, it is you who have to be brought home.

Start enjoying this moment — the eternal now, the only time that there is, the only existence that there is, the only life that there is.

Simple understanding is needed, nothing is to be done. Not through effort but through understanding the ultimate is achieved.

If you are alert, in a sudden illumination the mind falls. Suddenly you are one with the pure consciousness; you have fallen to your base, to your root.

Existence appears to you as you are. One of the fundamental laws this is. Whatsoever you see depends from where you see.

Life and death appear as opposites because you are divided. Otherwise life becomes death, death becomes life.

Penetrate the beginning, move to the roots, and to the source, and revealed will be the meaning.

And you carry the seed right now within you — the seed of all meaning, of all possibilities, of all doors that can open and all mysteries that can happen. You carry the seed!

10.

To this existence you belong, you have come out of it.

11.

This existence has a blueprint in you, this existence is trying to fulfill some destiny through you. Look within.

12.

There is only one reality of which you can be absolutely certain and that is the reality within.

Close your eyes, meditate.

May the force be with you.

One tenth of your being is conscious, nine tenths of your being is unconscious. Just a small fragment has become conscious, and that too is always wavering. Any moment it can fall, it is very easy. That's how it happens in intoxication: you take alcohol, the conscious falls into the unconscious. Hence the appeal in all the ages and all the climates and in all the countries of alcohol. And this is what happens when you take a drug: the conscious falls into the unconscious. It is beautiful because thinking stops. Sleep is beautiful and you have many many dreams. And if you are a good dreamer then a drug will give you beautiful dreams — fantastic, more colorful than any dream can be, more luminous. You move into paradise, into a dreamland, but you are not moving into reality. LSD, marijuana, mescaline, or any drug, gives you only a good sleep, and in that good sleep you dream. Those dreams are colorful, and your life is so poor and your life is such a misery that you would even like to live those dreams rather than live in this miserable life. You would choose — if that was the only choice — to live in a beautiful dream rather than to live in this miserable life. This life is like a nightmare. Even if a drug is only going to give you a luminous dream, colorful, three-dimensional, why not take it? Because what is there in this life? Because life is in such a mess you choose dreams. Drugs, alcohol, or other sorts of intoxicants, they have always been used by religious people. But through them you never move into the reality. Through them you fall into a torpor, into a coma. And in that coma you can have dreams. And if you have been thinking too much about God, you can see God, because you can project your own dreams. Dreams can be directed and guided. If you have been thinking too much of Christ, then while under the influence of a drug Christ will appear to you. This is your own mind playing games. If you have been too much attached to Krishna then he will be standing there with his flute on his lips, singing and dancing. If a Hindu, a devotee of Krishna, takes LSD he will see Krishna, and a Christian will see Jesus, and a Buddhist will see Buddha — but these are mind projections. Reality is miserable but don't hanker after dreams, because if you hanker after dreams then there is only one way: how to help the conscious become unconscious again. A small part has come up out of unconsciousness, and that is the beauty of a human being. Agony and ecstasy both, but that is the beauty of a human being, that he has become an island in a vast unconscious. This island has to grow higher and higher so it becomes a continent. Through drugs it will go again underwater, you will live again the life of an animal or a tree — beautiful in themselves but not worthy of you, because you are losing so much.

- Osho