I am inspired by the recent discovery of bones from very small and apparently intelligent early hominids (Homo floresiensis), mainly because I love to picture them in life, making their tools, enjoying their families, building and hunting and possibly speaking some sort of early language – and it is somehow comforting to imagine another species of intelligent human on planet earth living at the same time as our own species…

Hobbits? We’ve got a cave full

By Deborah Smith, Science Editor (smh.com.au)

Chief Epiradus Dhoi Lewa has a strange tale to tell. Sitting in his bamboo and wooden home at the foot of an active volcano on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, he recalls how people from his village were able to capture a tiny woman with long, pendulous breasts three weeks ago.

“They said she was very little and very pretty,” he says, holding his hand at waist height. “Some people saw her very close up.”

The villagers of Boawae believe the strange woman came down from a cave on the steaming mountain where short, hairy people they call Ebu Gogo lived long ago.

“Maybe some Ebu Gogo are still there,” the 70-year-old chief told the Herald through an interpreter in Boawae last week.

The locals’ descriptions of Ebu Gogo as about a metre tall, with pot bellies and long arms match the features of a new species of human “hobbits” whose bones were recently unearthed by Australian and Indonesian researchers in a different part of Flores in a cave known as Liang Bua.

The unexpected discovery of this tiny Homo floresiensis, who existed until at least 12,000 years ago at Liang Bua, before being apparently wiped out by a volcanic eruption, was hailed as one of the most important archaeological finds in decades when it was announced in October…

For the complete post, click here.

Welcome back to planet Every Day Life! I hope everyone’s holidays were sane and nourishing in some form or another.

So, everyone seems to have resolutions for the New Year and it’s this week that we are expected to actually act on those pledges. My promise to myself is always the same: To live more in the present and to somehow find the key to calming that incessant debilitating chatter in my head – you know, that radio station in your brain that tells you constantly how you need to do this or that, or how misunderstood you are, or how your house is the dirtiest house in the western world, or your parenting is suspect, or how sad and unhealthy your cats must be because you don’t feed them Science Diet anymore…

The Zen Buddhists call it monkey mind. Writer Anne Lamott calls it Radio Station KFKD. Whatever you may call it, here’s some good advice for calming it the heck down, linked to from the aptly named Monkey Mind blog:

Controlling the Monkey Mind

A Lecture by Shunryu Suzuki Rosh

This lecture is reprinted from the October 2001 Berkeley Zen Center Newsletter.

The purpose of sesshin is to be completely one with our practice. We use two Chinese characters for “sesshin.” “Ses” means to treat something the way one treats a guest or the way a student treats a teacher. Another meaning of “ses” is to control or arrange things in order. “Shin” means mind or heart. So sesshin means to have proper functioning of mind. When we say “control,” it is our five senses and our will, or small monkey mind which should be controlled. We control our monkey mind in order to resume our true Big Mind. When monkey mind is always taking over the activity of Big Mind, we naturally become a monkey. So monkey mind must have his boss, which is Big Mind.

However, when we practice zazen, it does not mean that Big Mind is controlling small mind, but simply that when small mind becomes calm, Big Mind starts its true activity. Most of the time in our everyday life, we are involved in the activity of small mind. That is why we should practice zazen and be completely involved in resuming Big Mind…

For the complete lecture, click here.

Yes, even the Dalai Lama thinks that Obama’s peace prize was given a little early, but we still need to remain hopeful that 2010 is going to be a great year for us and our country and that things are going to get better. New Year’s Eve is the day where we are invited to reinvent ourselves. It’s a day of hope and a celebration of moving forward with optimism.

Now, for fun, let’s take a look at some footage of that giant spiral UFO that was spotted by countless people in the skies of Norway recently!

Happy Holidays to all of you! May your 2010 be filled with wonder and optimism.

Now, if anyone still has any doubts that we live in a universe where anything is possible, even something as incredible as reincarnation, check this out:

After a Short Delay, Quantum Mechanics Becomes Even Weirder

By Adrian Cho
ScienceNOW Daily News

According to quantum mechanics, light can be either a graceful rippling wave or a hail of bulletlike particles, depending on how you look at it. Now, an experiment shows that an observer can make the choice retroactively, after light has entered a measuring apparatus. The result shows that reality is truly in the eye of the beholder…

Click here to learn how this is possible.

Meet explorer, Buddhist and spiritualist Alexandra David-Neel – Probably one of the most remarkable women of her time. I stumbled upon knowledge of her when I was researching Tibet and I am so happy to have found her. In 1911 this fascinating woman went alone to Lhasa and befriended the 13th Dalai Lama when that area of the world was still closed to foreigners. And this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the adventures this woman had in the East (for example, she lived for a while as a spiritual hermit in a cave near the Himalayas.) Why isn’t there a blockbuster film about this woman?

Read about her here, and here. Maybe you will be as inspired by her spirit as I am.

I have always thought that I’d have to live again in order to have the slightest chance of traveling in space. And I am probably right. But the good news is the technology for space travel could vastly improve travel times around planet Earth. (Hey, it’s worth the ticket price just to get those few seconds of micro gravity!)

Commercial Spaceships May Speed up Consumer Air Travel
Want to fly anywhere on Earth in less than two hours?

By Irene Klotz

…Virgin Galactic is scheduled to unveil SpaceShipTwo in California’s Mojave Desert, the first spacecraft for private passenger travel.

With several firms working on commercial suborbital spaceships, a two-hour flight to anywhere on Earth may soon be possible, says an advocacy group laying the groundwork for global high-speed air and space travel…

For the rest click here.

Biocentrism is the most compelling new philosophy of existence that I’ve encountered. I have spent countless night just imagining how it could work and what it all must mean. I still do not completely “grok” it, but my fascination has not waned one bit and I plan to continue studying it. The following article touches on Biocentrism and addresses the concept of the illusionary quality of Death…

Does Death Exist? New Theory Says ‘No’ (From HuffPost)

Many of us fear death. We believe in death because we have been told we will die. We associate with the body, and we know that bodies die. But a new scientific theory suggests death is not the end.

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). A new scientific theory – called biocentrism – refines these ideas. There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios…

For the complete article click here.

There is one thing I know of that really does not seem like it wants to reincarnate: Nuclear waste. How on earth do we quarantine a hazardous material for more than one million years? The “solution” is nothing less than otherworldly – except that it IS on our world, and that is a bit disconcerting.

If you haven’t heard of it, you’ll be amazed when you learn about the nuclear waste-entombment site proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Resembling some new breed of Stargate emerging from the Earth, the tunnel-boring machine at Yucca Mountain reaches daylight; Courtesy of the Department of Energy

One Million Years of Isolation: An Interview with Abraham Van Luik

Abraham Van Luik is a geoscientist with the U.S. Department of Energy; he is currently based at the nuclear waste-entombment site proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Yucca Mountain, a massive landform created by an extinct supervolcano inside what is now Nellis Air Force Base’s Nevada Test and Training Range, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the controversial site chosen by Congress for the storage of nuclear waste. Its political fate remains uncertain. Although the Obama Administration has stated that Yucca Mountain is “no longer… an option for storing nuclear waste,” Congress has since voted to continue funding the project—albeit only with enough funds to allow the licensing process to continue…

Click here for the interview. Click here for an incredible diagram of the site.

What do I want in my stocking this year? How about an entire universe, customized exactly how I want it?…

Sound ridiculous? Yes! But listen up…seems that alternate universes are scientifically possible, which, if you think about it, really does make a case for Heaven, Hell, the Bardo, Nirvana, Valhalla and all the other countless afterlife “universes” we’ve taken on faith all these years. I’ve noticed that the more advanced scientific thought becomes (see: String Theory), the more in tune with the most far-out religious and spiritual concepts it gets. Perhaps one day soon the worlds of science and faith will converge in a wonderfully bizarre theory of Everything?

Now, back to the matter at hand, buying a universe! -

Quantum physics dictates that reality is created by observation. There are an infinite number of possible realities, which can be actualised only through observation – an unlimited variety of parallel universes exist in what is known as quantum flux.

In some of these universes the deeds purchased from Buy Your Own Universe will be recognised as legally binding, meaning that you really are the rightful owner of your Universe!

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A CUSTOMIZED PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Cryptozoology is my secret addiction. I wholeheartedly believe in Bigfoot – but I really do not believe he’s hanging out in Central Park. However, one fellow certainly does…

Thank you to Ghosttheory for this great find:

Ufologist and Cryptozoologist Nick Redfern posted a really far fetched,but interesting story about a Bigfoot-like creature spotted in New York’s Central Park.

As silly as this might sound, the witness appeared sincere in his face to face interview with Nick.

It’s important to remember that as skeptical as you are, you have to listen and investigate claims in order to weed-out the hoaxes & misidentified sightings. At times it’s like a wild goose chase.

Is there some Bigfoot-like creature living in NYC’s Central Park? Not likely. Is it possible for the witness to have seen something that, to him, was not human looking? Very likely.

This reminds me of the movie “Caveman’s Valentine“. Such an interesting film.

The Creature of the Park

By Nick Redfern

For the most part, the overwhelming majority of all reports, stories, accounts and tales I receive of strange beasts roaming the United States tend to be relatively down-to-earth – or at least as down-to-earth as it’s possible to be when dealing with accounts relative to Bigfoot, lake-monsters, werewolves and a truly wide and varied assortment of other creepy critters.

Sasquatch, for example, is generally reported from within the deep woods and eerie forests of the Pacific north-west; lake-monsters generally surface from within the murky depths of some of the United States’ larger bodies of water; and as for werewolves: well, for some reason, there are a huge amount of reports from the dense woodland and plains of rural Wisconsin. In other words, in those places that are very much dominated by long stretches of wilderness, forests and deep lakes, strange creatures absolutely proliferate…

For the complete piece click here.