Archive for the ‘Brains’ Category

Posted on July 20, 2010 - by Andrew

Yoga music can help cats relax

Sian Barr, a student veterinary nurse, has carried out research on sick cats being treated at a vet’s sugery. Miss Barr, a recent graduate with a first class honours, concluded that yoga medication music can help. Cats become less stressed when they listen to the music.

Sian told the Telegraph;

Stress in small doses can be a good thing, such as if a cat is under stress to eat, then it can perform better.
“But otherwise, it will have a negative effect, such as in a veterinary practice.

“This is because a cat is in a cage and isn’t able to do what it would like to do, so stress levels will increase and it will become wound up and angry.

“This is bad for not only its behaviour, becoming difficult for staff to handle, but also for its immune system and ability to heal.

Barr measured the ear and eye activity of the felines in order to determine how stressed they were as well as monitoring respiration levels. A control group was not exposed to the music. The other group was treated to the yoga relaxation music and Om Shanti tunes.

Sian says the effect was dramatic.

In Pure Spirit

What do you think? Have you seen your cat react or chill out to any of your music collection before?

Posted on July 15, 2010 - by Andrew

The Virgin of the Rocks: Da Vinci decoded

In Pure Spirit has secured permission from The Guardian newspaper to re-publish some of their articles. Under the agreement we’re not allowed to edit the contents of the article.  I apologise, therefore, for the lack of internal links but I’m sure its better to have their great writing than not at all.

We still want to include pictures and encourage comments. Please let us know what you think.

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This article was written by Jonathan Jones, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 13th July 2010 20.31 UTC

The first clue to consider in deciding who painted The Virgin of the Rocks is the hair of the angel. That angel, sitting to the right, has long been recognised as the loveliest figure in this painting. Last week, I stood staring at the minutely precise spirals that knot and unknot on her head. It was the last in a series of visits to the National Gallery’s skylit restoration studio, high above Trafalgar Square, where for the past 18 months The Virgin of the Rocks has been cleaned. What I saw, with sudden clarity, was the intimate similarity between the angel’s fine curls and Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of foaming rivers and swirling clouds, done at the same time in his life.

From there, turn your gaze to the angel’s sleeve: its fine pattern of interlinked gold hoops is evidently from the same hand; the grasses and leaves lower down the painting have likewise grown from the drawings of plants in Leonardo’s sketchbooks. Follow the many varieties of foliage – thin grass, tangled thorn, splotches of moss – into all the nooks and crannies that give this painting its atmosphere and name, and you have no doubt you are looking at a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.

This may not seem so surprising. It may not even sound like news. After all, since it was bought by the National Gallery in 1880, The Virgin of the Rocks has been exhibited as a “Leonardo”. But the small print was more complicated. If you read further into the gallery caption or catalogue, this painting’s attribution turned out to be ambiguous. For a long time, the National has believed its Leonardo to be mostly the work of assistants, with only the basic design and some perfect parts – above all, that angel – recognisable as his handiwork.

What a difference a cleaning can make. In its official statement yesterday, the gallery was naturally cautious (“it now seems possible that Leonardo painted all the picture himself”); but talking to me over several weeks in the workshop, in front of the painting, the National’s experts made it clear they believe this to be a pure and unsullied painting by Leonardo’s own hand. “We now have a picture which I believe is entirely by Leonardo,” said Luke Syson, curator of Italian Renaissance paintings and the man who has spearheaded this restoration. If he is right, this is a Leonardo to rank alongside The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa.

The Virgin of the Rocks exists in two versions: this one in London, and another in the Louvre. Why did Leonardo, who so rarely finished anything, completely redo this particular work? In 1483, he was commissioned to paint the central panel of a carved altarpiece for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan. He had just moved there from Florence; he was 31. As a calling card, it turned out to be typically bold. The pious fraternity did not get a painting alluding to the virgin birth of Christ’s mother, her “immaculate” freedom from sin; they got Mary introducing the young Saint John the Baptist – the toddler to the left, with her hand on his shoulder – to her son Jesus, who sits across from him, a foot or so away from his mother. The scene is a grotto in a wilderness. Through chinks in the towering rocks we glimpse blue and green waters, dappled vegetation, mountains receding into a glowing sky.

It’s a painting that has haunted me since my first visit to the National Gallery. Once you’ve seen it, everything else in this collection looks like flat daubs. There’s something about the Leonardo that gets to the deepest part of your brain. The view of sky and water through rocks stimulates the unconscious; the picture is like something you have dreamt. Perhaps this is why Leonardo was willing to paint it twice – because in this cavernous landscape he hit on a topography that perfectly reproduced the effect he claimed you could get by staring at a wall. (In his notes on painting, Leonardo advises the young artist to use what he admits may seem a ridiculous method to get visual ideas. If you stare at the stains and marks on a wall you start to see faces, landscapes, battles, he wrote.) Look at The Virgin of the Rocks with narrowed eyes. Are the dark rocks and holes not like stains and marks in a wall? Is there not an abstract, random, blot-like quality to their arrangement? In this painting Leonardo created a rocky wall to dream on.

He spent 25 years of his life on this image, from the original commission in 1483 to the last work on the second picture in 1508. A lot of things happened in that quarter-century. Leonardo painted The Last Supper, started the Mona Lisa and The Battle of Anghiari, tried and failed to fly, filled notebooks with inventions and theories. Wars raged and rulers fell. Still The Virgin of the Rocks held him. It was commissioned in a world that ended somewhere over the horizon beyond Ireland. When it was finished, if it ever was, it was in a world that included America.

The first version was probably painted quite quickly, but the painting that now hangs in the Louvre never decorated the Confraternity’s altarpiece. It may instead have been sold to Ludovico Sforza, ruler of Milan. A letter written in about 1494 suggests that Leonardo was not satisfied with the pittance he was getting from the Confraternity. This was art, not some workmanlike icon; Leonardo sold it on to a generous bidder. He then took an insultingly long time to produce a replacement for the church. That second replacement painting was still in Milan in the 18th century, when it was bought by the British artist Gavin Hamilton; in 1880, it was bought by the National Gallery.

The modern take on the Virgin of the Rocks, the gallery believes, has been influenced by a botched job in its own conservation department more than 60 years ago. In 1948, the painting was varnished. The concoction applied was an “unstable combination”, says Larry Keith, the new director of conservation, “[one] that was rapidly yellowing”. The painting was still hypnotic; but it’s true that two years ago, when it was last on public view, there was a flatness to much of it – only the angel seemed to have the vitality of Leonardo’s own paintings.

Since November 2008, Larry Keith has done the actual, hands-on work of restoration, liaising closely with Syson and the gallery’s scientific department. “You reap the benefits of a collective endeavour,” he says. Every decision he makes is based on the best analyses available. The result is what he calls a “conservative” restoration; it’s hard to see how anyone could accuse them of luridly jazzing up Leonardo’s painting, although that won’t stop diehard enemies of restoration from finding fault. Perhaps they will object to the painting’s spectacular new frame, made from fragments of a 16th-century original in order to recreate its original altarpiece setting.

In Leonardo’s brushstrokes

Conservative this restoration may be in style, but its implications are revolutionary. “I do believe the net effect is to get out of the way, so that you can see the picture properly,” says Keith, who never paints for his own pleasure (artistic originality would be a vice in a restorer, he says). In removing the ugly varnish, what became instantly more visible were “values and volumes”. A far richer variety of solid forms, depths and colours emerged. Keith’s retouching – gently and carefully repairing gaps in the paint – respected this new fullness and liveliness. As Syson watched and advised, his opinion of the picture changed by the day. “I’ve written, as a lot of people have, that this picture is collaborative,” Syson tells me. “That seemed quite plausible from what you could see in the pre-cleaned version. But then Larry started cleaning at the top-right corner, and it immediately started to look very free – not like the work of a pupil.”

A few days later, Syson calls me to qualify this claim. He stresses that, after an intense period working so close to a painting like this, your view of it is not the one you might have coming to it cold. There will, he acknowledges, still be debate. But the terms of that debate are now very different.

My own opinion is that this is all Leonardo. When I first saw the “new” painting in March, it seemed to have been freed from an amber prison. Every part of it swam with hesitant, playful creativity. How could I have missed, in the past, such brilliances as the tangle of sharp thorny branches behind the angel? That bush, at once natural observation and fantastic improvisation, is obviously Leonardo. So are most of the grasses and leaves that perforate every crevice. But the key to rethinking this picture is to grasp that it is not finished. It is not a neatly executed copy made to satisfy a commissioning body.

Behind John the Baptist are brown, palm-like leaves that look exactly like the silhouettes of desert trees in Leonardo’s unfinished painting The Adoration of the Magi: another purely Leonardo touch, and a sign that he never completely finished this painting, either. It was worked on over a long period, in fits and starts, as Leonardo left Milan, came back, then went away again. Syson says it finally struck him: why did the painting take so long? Because work could only go ahead when Leonardo was there – because he, not an assistant, was doing the painting. Parts of the painting are jewel-like, others are vague, but this does not seem to be a question of master and pupil. It looks more like the difference between Leonardo bringing something to perfection, and Leonardo leaving those palm leaves to complete later.

The first time I saw the cleaned picture I thought, wow, it’s a true Leonardo. Then hearing someone else say it – for all Syson’s expertise and eloquence – brought out the cynical journalist in me. I had to see it one last time, to look at it as objectively as possible. I started with the angel’s hair, those rivers of light. Then I looked at the angelic sleeve, the grasses and leaves, the palms, the Virgin’s hair, which for the first time I recognised as another riverine braid straight out of a Leonardo drawing. I looked at the tendons of her outstretched hand (think of Leonardo’s anatomical studies), the profound facial expressions. Why did anyone ever doubt this was anything but a great Leonardo? This is the passionate play of a genius at work: ceaselessly experimental, provocative, brave. The Virgin of the Rocks is a missing link between his paintings and the uninhibited playfulness of his drawings. A treasure is reborn.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Posted on July 12, 2010 - by Andrew

I Will Survive – the Holocaust dance

I think this is beautiful. Do you agree?

A Holocaust survivor, his daughter and his grandchildren visit concentration camps around Europe.

What do they do? They dance to Gloria Gaynor‘s “I Will Survive“.

This video has actually been around for half a year but is quickly going viral now the blogs have caught wind of it.

On YouTube the family say, “This dance is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit and a celebration of life.”

(more…)

Posted on July 10, 2010 - by Andrew

Spain will win World Cup predicts Peruvian Shaman

A gathering of Peruvian shamans in Lima resulted in self-proclaimed master Juan Osco predicting Spain will win the World Cup.

However, not all the shamans who took part in the colourful ceremony agreed and a number of senior shamans came out in favour of the Netherlands.

This isn’t the first time Osco, sometimes known as “Shaman of the Andes”, has led a ceremony in which the shaman disagreed. In October 2008, the Peruvian shaman devined the results of the American election; 9 came out in favour of Obama and 2 for John McCain. Juan Osco predicted the Obama win.

In 2003, Osco predicted that Osama bin Laden would not be captured or handed over and would remain a mystery.

The healer shamans of the Amazon Basin are fairly common in the coastal regions and hills of the country and are known as curanderos.

The word “curandero” transates directly from Spanish to mean “healer”.

Within the Curanderos there are different types of shaman. The “Yerberos” as specialise in herbalism, “Parteras” who act as midwives and the “Hueseroes” and “Sobaderos” who are bone and muscle therapists. All types of Curanderos are believed to have supernatural powers.

(more…)

Posted on June 18, 2010 - by Andrew

Immortal jellyfish invading the world’s oceans

Scientists have found what may be the only animal in the world capable of immortality. The hydrozoans jellyfish is able to revert back to its polyp state – that’s its first stage of live, the stage it is born into and before it starts to mature into an older jellyfish.

The process is called transdiffentiation and other animals have limited forms of it. For example, the salamander can regrow limbs. The hydrozoans, however, can regenerate its entire body and it can do so as often as it wants.

Needless to say; scientists are looking into how this remarkable creature manages to achieve this!

Here’s the thing; because the hyrdozoan don’t die of natural old age their numbers are increasing. Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute. Told the WorldHealth.net that;

“We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion

In Pure Spirit

Are you impressed? Are you worried? What do you think about the impressive regeneration cycle the jellyfish is apparently able to engage in? Would it benefit mankind or harm us hugely if we’re able to harness this process in any way at all?

Posted on May 23, 2010 - by Andrew

DoGood – swap out annoying web ads with green messages

It’s increasingly common for people to try and block adverts on websites. To do this they’ll install some software that simply makes known ads appear as blank spaces when they visit websites.

I guess people do this for a number of reasons. Some might just hate seeing ads when they browse. Others don’t like the distraction. There’s even a security argument as ads are often little holes in a trusted website pointing to the highest bidder.

There’s a problem though. Large websites use ads to make money. They take money when people see an ad – not when they click or buy something (as In Pure Spirit does). If you run an ad blocker and you visit their site, read their content, etc, then are you a thief?

Some sites would say so!

Here’s a possible solution – or a possible can of worms – which is called DoGood. What DoGood does is swap out adverts with green messages/adverts for green companies. They give 50% of the money those adverts earn them to charity. Let’s hope they use the other 50% to promote the service, make it better and otherwise adopt a don’t-be-evil strategy.

DoGood also says their solution doesn’t block the original adverts. People can switch back and forth. This means big sites don’t get robbed of their ‘impression’ based payment (but small sites like this one which hopes for the very occassional affiliate payment may still suffer). However; it’s better than so many other ad-blockers.

DoGood also, as you’d hope, run a blog and have recently increased the browsers they support to include Google’s Chrome. This is a sign that they’re serious.

In Pure Spirit

What do you think? Is this a good idea or is it a terrible one? Should DoGood be keeping 50% – perhaps this figure will come down as/when/if the company grows?

Posted on April 8, 2010 - by Andrew

Children forced to use death slide

I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified.

In stark contrast to UK’s health and safety laws check out this “death slide” made by workers in Bolivia.

This is their way home.

Please be aware that this video is a clip from Current TV’s Deadliest Journeys which is being distrubute as part of a promotion campaign.

In Pure Spirit

Would you even consider a slide like this as a way home?

These are Bolivian coca workers. Even if the coca is far trade the workers and their families may still take this sort of risk. Does it make you think twice about chocolate?

Posted on March 21, 2010 - by Andrew

The Chinese zodiac in crayon

These ordinary crayons have been gracefully carved into the 12 symbols of the Chinese zodiac.

The artist behind this clever feat is Diem Chau. She normally works in other materials but I’m glad she made a colourful exception with these crayons.

In Pure Spirit

What do you think? Aren’t they as beautiful as they are clever?

Posted on March 13, 2010 - by Andrew

Heidi Montag appoints intuitive psychic as manager

America reality TV star Heidi Montag (technically now Heidi Pratt since marrying Spencer Pratt) is in the news for replacing her manager with a psychic.

The thing is; her manager was husband Spencer Pratt. Despite the severing of business ties the couple are remaining together.

Heidi’s new manager is a bloke called Aiden Chase. He describes himself as an Intuitive Healer.

Here’s a vid.

People magazine has the exclusive inside on this.

She said;

“After the incredible experiences I have had healing my life and truly connecting to my dreams with healer intuitive Aiden Chase, I have officially asked him to become my manager,

“Having an intuitive psychic leading my team gives me an edge no one else has.”

Posted on March 8, 2010 - by Andrew

Australian man burns witches house after “sex curse”

In the Northern Territory, Australia, David Laurin has been sentenced to three years for burning a woman’s house down.

Laurin, 31, pleaded guilty to the charges as the court heard he believed the woman was a witch who had cursed his sex life.

In the NT Supreme Court, Chief Justice Dean Mildren heard how David Laurin met his girlfriend Kelly on the internet.

His relationship with Kelly went down hill and they split up in January 2009. Kelly’s since given birth to their child.

A psychiatrist told the NT court that Laurin had a “borderline personality disorder“. The psychiatrist also blamed the role of “internet wars games” played in Laurin’s life; suggesting they helped form his identity.

In Pure Spirit

Do you think Laurin got what he deserved? Is the psychiatrist did the right thing by pointing a finger at the internet?