Five podcasts that will benefit your health and wellbeing – The Sydney Morning Herald

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Podcasts those intimate, accessible and free audio files have revolutionised our listening habits. Podcast subscriptions on iTunes exceeded one billion in 2013, and an ABC survey in 2016 suggested that committed podcast audiences listen to an average of 5 per week, with nearly one in five enthusiasts tuning in to 11 or more weekly.

Podcasts are appealing because they can be tailored to our individual interests with minimal effort and cost, says psychologist and social commentator Sabina Read, who until recently co-hosted the weekly Good Thinking radio program with Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. (They no longer make Good Thinking but, fittingly, all their shows are available as podcasts.)

"Podcasts are really a personal learning tool for the masses, whether your interests include sport, relationships, technology, news, health, family or comedy," she says. "They have the benefit of providing easy-to-digest sound bites that allow us to learn and grow while still carrying on with other daily activities like driving to work or walking the dog. There's also something very appealing about listening to people's nuanced voices and emotional tones that can create a sense of human connection."

With hundreds of thousands of podcasts available, it can be tricky to know where to begin. Here's a round-up of some of the best for mind, body and spirit.

In his weekly podcast, author and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields unpicks big topics like meaning, happiness, purpose, creativity, confidence and success. Fields' curiosity means he gives his guests (who range from Bren Brown and Seth Godin to everyday people) the space and time to dive deep.

So many of us are too busy, too stressed and too tired. Brooke McAlary's podcast is the perfect antidote. She explores what can help us live a slower and simpler life, such as developing rituals for gratitude and single-tasking, meditation, screen-free bedrooms and frugal hedonism (yes, it's a thing).

It might sound a bit Oprah-esque, but if you're looking to improve yourself and live your best life, then Carly Jacobs and Kelly Exeter's podcast is for you. Jacobs and Exeter are self-improvement junkies who discuss the side effects of living a hectic life and offer tips, advice and strategies to get your calm on. They present a personable, funny podcast with heaps of life hacks a fresh one each week from learning to say no to being more decisive.

While it has a plain title, Justin Malik's daily podcast is anything but ordinary. A digest of what he calls the internet's best content, Malik narrates blog posts (with permission from their authors) which mainly examine personal development, minimalism and productivity. It could be a recipe for dullness, but Malik is skilled at curating compelling and challenging episodes. With each coming in at around 10 minutes, OLD is a bite-sized summary of what's currently great on the web.

Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox.

If you're someone who likes your wellbeing and health advice backed up by scientific evidence, it's hard to go past this podcast by ABC Radio National. The host, Dr Norman Swan, cuts through medical jargon to make complex topics digestible for listeners who want to know more about subjects such as allergies, the impact of sugar, brain training and brown fat. It's the perfect dose for those who wish their GP was up to date with the latest research and had half an hour to spend with them each week.

How to find great podcasts

Ask your friends what they're listening to.

Search by topic to find the podcast that suits your interests.

You can subscribe to podcasts via platforms such as iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and PodBean.

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Five podcasts that will benefit your health and wellbeing - The Sydney Morning Herald

Fear to tread: Should the travel advisory for every place on earth be ‘Don’t’? – Times of India (blog)

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Only the date line changes. Exactly a week ago, London, Paris, Brussels, Dhaka, Delhi, Islamabad respectfully made way for Barcelona. Mowing down tourists is the new normal despaired the Evening Standard while Londoners sat transfixed to the too- familiar photograph of a bloodied avenue. Las Ramblas, the very metaphor of hedonism, had been bustling with carefree crowds when a van emerged like a bat out of hell driven with a fervour linked to the promise of heaven. The next Monday, a bomb alert evacuated the same stretch.

East and West have met in terror. True, each had had enough of its own, but now its of a common genre. What demons or angels drive 22-year-olds to get behind a wheel and ram coldly into unsuspecting strangers? And how alert can we be when jihad comes via such everyday objects as a van, kitchen knife or the tiffin box bombs of Mumbai and Delhi.

This column swells from my time on the Ramblas, my awe over something as civilised as a 1.2 km thoroughfare dedicated to pedestrians, leaving vehicles to fend for themselves on its margins. My first encounter with this incredible boulevard came at an international AIDS conference in 2002. It was where Indias HIV-afflicted finally found their voice, and through which a flamboyant Shatrughan Sinha swaggered as health minister. So the many stories to be filed kept me away from Las Ramblass tireless blandishments. But my hotel was right on it, and i went to bed with riffs of laughter and the weeping of violins. In the morning when i walked to catch my tube, it lay exhausted from its multiple orgasms.

Two other visits allowed a more touristy appreciation. Of the Ramblass gilded statue men, the segueing of the worlds accents, the flowers, food and baubles, the eccentric Gaudi architecture just off it, and suave Hispanics seducing over La Riojas or returning from a late-late concert, the men in long formal skirts (you read that right).

Now in London, my two always-must-dos are also stained by recent attacks: the Borough market and Westminster bridge. But the crowds still mill undaunted. Its the most effective thumbed-nose to terror. Or so they say.

***

Alec Smart said: Triple talaq: right decision, hopefully for the right reason.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Fear to tread: Should the travel advisory for every place on earth be 'Don't'? - Times of India (blog)

Joy-Anna Duggar Rides Dirt Bike, Wears … Well, You Gotta See This – The Hollywood Gossip

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Joy-Anna Duggar and her husband, Austin Forsyth, are on one crazy ride. And not just on the emotional roller coaster known as this life.

No, we're talking about in the literal sense, on dirt bikes.

Just days before their three-month wedding anniversary, they took to the outdoors ... and she dressed for the occasion as only a Duggar can:

The Counting On cast member, 19, donned her traditional, conservative styleof dress - with a striped undershirt underneath the floral frock.

(And protective riding gear, obviously. Safety first!)

I always love getting to do new things & go on new adventures with my man! Joy-Anna captioned the photos above and below.

#firsttimedirtbiking #loveyouforeverandalways.

Joy-Anna and Austin, in the first photo, are seen on on separate bikes; Joy then wraps her arms around her husband, 22, on the same one.

Some might argue that wearing a flowing dress while dirt biking is unconventional, even dangerous, with all of that fabric and machinery.

She does not seem deterred in the least, though.

The Duggar dress code, and how it evolves (or doesn't) with the adult women after they marry continues to fascinate fans and critics.

Jinger Duggar wearing pants and shorts has become a thing lately, and yet it's only permissible because her husband is cool with it.

Many fans are no doubt thrilled to know that Jeremy Vuolo doesn't equate jeans with hedonism, but it's a little troubling that it's his call.

While Jinger is really sticking it to Jim Bob left and right these days, Joy-Anna appears to have no such post-wedding inclinations.

People close to them say that Austin's family is more conservative than the Duggars, if that's possible, so it's not a huge shock.

Jessa Duggar has also remained steadfast in her embrace of the code, despite Jim Bob and Ben Seewald clashing over religion.

Not that Joy-Anna hasn't raised eyebrows in other ways;Joy-Anna's "obscene" PDA with Austin was a jaw-dropper for many fans.

In any case, it's hard to believe it's been three months since the couple tied the knot back on May 26 in their native Arkansas.

So far its incredible, Joy-Anna said.

Saying our vows and saying I do and committing our lives to each other is so incredible. Im so blessed to be married to him.

Austin added, Im just looking forward to getting to share my life ... its good times and its challenges, with my best friend."

Of his young wife, Forsyth continued, Having someone there to love me and support me and always be there for me.

Joy-Anna Duggar Wedding Photos: Check Out Mrs. Forsyth's Big Day!

Start Gallery

Pants or no pants, these two are in love.

Every Duggar courtship - and marriage - is different, so it will be interesting to see the path Joy (or Austin) chooses for them in life.

So far, though, Jingerand Jeremy have, by far, set the high water mark for marital independence from the all-powerful Jim Bob.

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Celebrity Slam (08/23/2017) – Maine Edge

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The boxer and the Biebs

Its no secret that we love our beef here at Celebrity Slam. We love it when the rich and famous decide to turn on one another the more famous, the better.

So you can imagine our delight when word started coming out about the beef brewing between Celebrity Slam Pantheon member Justin Bieber and professional boxer Floyd Mayweather. Theres famous and then theres FAMOUS and these guys are definitely the latter.

It wasnt so long ago that Bieber and Mayweather were weirdly tight. Like, Bieber walking Mayweather to the ring tight. You wouldnt think that a Canadian pop idol and an all-time great boxing champion would have a ton in common especially when theres a two-decade age difference on top of it all but it seemed to work for them. Weird, but whatever.

Unfortunately, things have changed.

It seems that as part of Biebers efforts on changing his lifestyle, hes being advised to think long and hard about which influences he wants to continue to allow in his life. This has led to some difficult decisions; one of which is taking a step back from Mayweather.

According to sources, Bieber wasnt looking for a complete break, but rather just a bit of a remove Mayweathers notorious partying, strip club obsession and general hedonism arent really conducive to the changes that Bieber is looking to make.

But it was when Bieber unfollowed him on Instagram that the proverbial st hit the fan.

By all accounts, Mayweather went absolutely bonkers when that happened. Sources described the boxers reaction as insane and nuclear. Mayweather lashed out at Bieber, calling him a traitor and bemoaning the fact that Mayweather stuck by Biebers side during the singers notorious extended meltdown from a while back.

For his part, Bieber has largely stayed silent on the situation aside from a then-curious refusal to say that Mayweather will knock out Conor McGregor in their upcoming bout that now makes a heck of a lot more sense.

We can all agree that even by the standards set by your usual celebrity beef, this is some crazy nonsense, right?

Floyd Mayweather is one of the best boxers of all time. He has won all 49 of his professional bouts. He is on the verge of cashing the largest paycheck in the history of his sport following his bout with McGregor on Aug. 26; in fact, depending on when you read this, that fight may have already happened.

And hes behaving like a scorned, moody teenager because someone unfollowed him on social media.

Look, we get it hes probably bored. Its not like he has to concern himself with the farce of a fight; McGregor is an excellent MMA fighter who is almost certainly going to get annihilated in a boxing match against a brilliant ring technician like Mayweather.

And its not like Mayweather has ever been averse to saying and doing outlandish things in an effort to draw attention to himself and/or a particular fight. Theres a very real chance that his outrage is almost wholly manufactured as a ploy to get yet more people (like us) talking about him and his fight than otherwise might.

But come on, man its Instagram. Sure, were living in an age built on online fame, but does this really matter? Its not like hanging with Bieber made you noticeably more well-known. Youre already INCREDIBLY FAMOUS. So Bieber isnt part of the Money Team anymore. Who cares? So he wont be walking you to the ring for a fight that as awful as it will undoubtedly be will almost certainly the most-watched boxing match of the century so far. Why do you give a crap? Are you really that upset that a kid half your age doesnt want to hang out with you and throw bags of money at strippers?

Regardless, the outsized response from Mayweather is almost laughable. Its such an extreme take that you almost wonder what if Bieber actually decided to put money on McGregor and the whole thing is a ploy to try and get into Mayweathers head?

If thats the case, the Biebs is an evil genius who is still going to lose that idiotic bet because theres no way McGregor does anything other than get knocked out.

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Humanity+ Mission

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Humanity+ is dedicated to elevating the human condition. We aim to deeply influence a new generation of thinkers who dare to envision humanity's next steps. Our programs combine unique insights into the developments of emerging and speculative technologies that focus on the well-being of our species and the changes that we are and will be facing. Our programs are designed to produce outcomes that can be helpful to individuals and institutions.

Humanity+ is an international nonprofit membership organization which advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. In other words, we want people to be better than well.

Mission Statement: Humanity+ is an international nonprofit membership organization which advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. In other words, we want people to be better than well.

Where does Humanity+ advocate the ethical use of technology? What are the human capacities to be expanded? How does Humanity+ foster people being better than well? The following is written by Natasha Vita-More:

Humanity+adopted theTranshumanist Declaration.The Transhumanist Declaration was a a joint effort between members of Extropy Institute, World Transhumanist Association, and other transhumanist groups worldwide. TheTranshumanist Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ) is located at Humanity+'s website and is a collection of contributions by numerous authors, later edited by Nick Bostrom, and is updated as necessary by others. There are other FAQs on transhumanism, such asThe Transhumanist FAQwas developed by ExI and members of Humanity+ and earlier WTA.

Approximately 6000 people follow Humanity+ (including members and newsletter subscribers). Humanity+ followers come from more than 100 countries, from Afghanistan to Brazil to Egypt to the Philippines.Supporting and sustaining memberselect the Board, and participate in Humanity+ leadership and decision-making. Humanity+ members also participate in more than four dozenchaptersaround the world.

First, join Humanity+, and subscribe to the Humanity+ newsletter.

You may also enroll in one of our discussion lists and join one of our local H+ chapters, which can be found in countries and languages all over the world.

Mailing Address: Humanity+, Inc. 5042 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 14334 Los Angeles, California 90036

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Humanity+ Mission

Stronger, smarter, happier – what if a drug could make you a better version of yourself? – CBC.ca

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Tuesday August 22, 2017

If there werea pill that made yousmarter without studying, stronger without exercising, and happier without trying, would you take it?

That's the premiseof the 2011movie, Limitless,in which actor BradleyCooper plays astruggling writer who is offered a drug that promises him access to the full capacities of his brain.

Soon enough Cooper's character hasfinished writinghis book, acquired a wide range of newof skills, and is on his way to becoming one of the richest and most powerfulpeople in the country.

The fictitious scenario isfarfetched, but the idea of using drugs for self-enhancement is completely grounded in reality and it's possible you're participating in self-enhancement without even knowing it.

When thinking about LSD, your mind probably conjuresup images of the Beatles oruntethered hallucinations.

But there are also people some of them prestigious jobs with high stakeswho are using LSD to boost their performance at work.Microdosinginvolves taking small doses of LSD far less than you would use to have a full on hallucinatory trip in order to boost productivity and focus.

PJVogt, host of the hitpodcastReply All, and show producer PhiaBennindecided to put microdosing to the test, all while hiding their social experiment from their colleagues to see whether anyone would notice.

Thetales of the paranoia, accidental 'macrodosing,' and the very mixed results that ensued are all documented in a hilarious Reply All episode thatyou can listen to here.

Caffeine has been shown to boost athletic performance. (Unsplash/Kyle Meck)

Of course, regular LSD doses, however small, may not be everyone's cup of tea.

But there's also a legal, relatively safe drug that has been proven to make athletes perform better. It can also make you more alert and focused,and there's a pretty good chance some of it is already in your system right now.

If you haven't guessed yet it's caffeine.

Terry Graham,professor emeritusat the University of Guelph, spent years studying the effects of caffeine. After Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was disqualified fordoping at the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, Graham asked for funding to study whether caffeineaffects athletic performance with the hypothesis that its positive effects would be inconsequential.

"I was absolutely, 100 per cent wrong," he said. "Caffeine was a tremendous stimulant to exercise endurance and performance."

The boost provided by caffeine occurs within the muscle itself. Muscles are made up of motor units groups of muscle cells that contract all at once. When caffeine is present, each of those units produces a little more tension than usual, making the entiremuscle contractionstronger.

"Many of the substances that athletes can use to promote a better performance only act within acertain window, it could be strength, sprinting, or a prolonged activity. Butcaffeine seems to be able to influence all of these types of activities, so it's quite universal," he explained.

If tiny doses ofLSD, and big doses of coffee don't appeal to you as means of self-enhancement, there's always transhumanism abroad movement that aims to overcome our human limitations.

People involved with transhumanism believe that humans can be improved through things like smart drugs and gene editing. The three major strands aresuperintelligence, superlongevity, and superhappiness.

As explained by David Pearce, a philosopher and prominent figure in the transhumanist movement, this re-alignment of the basic human conditionshinges on something called the hedonistic imperative.

"Each of us has this approximate hedonic set point, some people are very, by today's standards, fortunate. They're pretty cheerful and they vacillate with a relatively high hedonic set point. Other people are more depressive and gloomy, and seem to fluctuate around gradients of ill-being."

"Nature didn't intend us to be happy, at least permanently happy, And we're just starting to decipher the particular genes and alleles associated with having either a high or low hedonic set point. Iwouldvery much hope that every future civilization would be based on everyone enjoying a high hedonic set point."

If you're trying to figure out your hedonic set point, Pearcesays toimagine a time in your life where you were happier than usual then imagine if you could feel that way all the time.

"If suffering were a recipe for nobility of character perhaps there would be some kind of case for obtaining it, but ... typically prolonged suffering tends to embitter. So we can argue what it actually means to be human. If we abolish suffering, would it have taken away our essential humanity?"

"Nature is exceptionally miserly with pleasure, an I see the challenge ahead isdelivering an extremely rich quality of life for everyone, but doing so in ways that don't compromise social responsibility or intellectual progress."

To subscribe to the podcastand hear more episodes of CBC On Drugs, follow the linkhere.

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How Much Sex Should You be Having? – Men’s Health

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Men's Health
How Much Sex Should You be Having?
Men's Health
A general sense of the type of spiritual enlightenment embodied by fitness gurus on Instagram and people who don't wear shoes at 7-Eleven? is unclear.) The problem with dictating how many times you should be having sex, however, is that it's ...

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Long Wharf Hears The "Sounds" Of Silence | New Haven Independent – New Haven Independent

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Ned, a 39-year-old man who works for a nonprofit, has suffered a series of calamities, from prolonged hospitalization to marital infidelity to rampant alcoholism, and has joined a weekend-long, mostly silent spiritual retreat in the hope that it will help him put himself back together. Hes sitting in a session with a match in his hand.

The teacher starts to play the recorder, playwright Bess Wohl writes. Ned has no idea what hes supposed to do. Hes slightly worried that hes supposed to set himself on fire. He half raises his hand, wanting to ask another question. The music stops.

Those are Wohls instructions to Ben Beckley, the actor playing Ned in Long Wharf Theatres upcoming production of Wohls Small Mouth Sounds, which runs Aug. 30 through Sept. 4. The emotion Beckley is supposed to convey is clear enough. But the fun of the play is that Beckley and all seven actors, at several points must convey such emotions mostly without words.

On the other hand, youd be surprised at how much people communicate without speaking at all, said Christine Scarfuto, Long Wharfs literary manager, who saw Small Mouth Sounds when it ran in New York in 2015. After all, much of our communication with others is nonverbal, as we all know from being in waiting rooms at doctors offices, or elevators, or public transportation when a delay is announced. We get a lot of information about people just by observing their behavior.

Even though theyre not talking as much, you still get a real feel for who they are, Scarfuto said.

The idea for the play people seeking some form of spiritual enlightenment or guidance came from Wohls visit to a retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y. The playwright went on this silent retreat with a friend of her without knowing that it was going to be a silent retreat, Scarfuto said. So after her first night she starting looking around and her playwriting brain turned on, and she thought, this is fascinating.

The retreat was a model for how to write a play in which the characters are almost never allowed to speak. The silence of the play is a wonderful obstacle, Scarfuto said. When you dont have speech, you have to rely on other ways of telling who you are and to connect with other people. And it can be very, very funny, or very sad.

But that doesnt mean that the actors become mimes, or Carthusian monks. Its super-realistic, actually. Its very natural, Scarfuto said. Its kind of like youre watching in a fish tank and youre seeing what the chemical reactions between the characters are.

Yeah, you know, people, she added, were pretty funny just as we are.

But Small Mouth Sounds also gets at some real questions about how people search for meaning in their lives. New Age spirituality can be easy to mock, with its crystals and healing vortexes, a use of language that can sound like Buddhism lite. The hypocrisies embedded in it are easy to point out.

In a way, though, its also a little too easy, to the point that making fun of it can almost sound self-defensive. Is it really worthy of mockery that people are trying to improve themselves? Is it really better to not try? Its also easy to mock things that sound profound but arent, really. But is it so bad to search for profundity?

Small Mouth Sounds mines the New Age scene for comedy, but takes its questions and its characters seriously. In the text of the play, before the drama even begins, Wohl gives the actors their characters backstories, which are hilariously written but also underline that these are people with very difficult lives. Some are recovering from terrible situations. Their need for enlightenment, or even just some kind of change, is desperate.

The stakes are really high for the weekend of the plays action, Scarfuto said. The characters come at the spiritual retreat from very different places. Some are old veterans of the scene. For others, its their first time. But all are coming at it with some kind of intense need for change in their lives, Scarfuto said. And thats a very dramatic idea.

Rehearsals for Small Mouth Sounds began in New Haven last Tuesday, bringing with it an irony that would be at home in the play itself.

I actually hear them a lot, Scarfuto said. Youd think for a largely silent play that wouldnt be the case, but theyre right above my office.

Small Mouth Sounds, by Bess Wohl, runs at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargeant Dr., from Aug. 30 to Sept. 24. For tickets and more information, click here.

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Close Encounters of the 4th Kind with the Sun Ra Arkestra in San … – PopMatters

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4 Aug 2017: Miner Auditorium @ SF Jazz Center San Francisco, CA

93-year-old saxman Marshall Allen continues to lead the Sun Ra Arkestra into the future

Few bands can survive their founder leaving the Earth and continuing to thrive, while both honoring the departed and pushing the music forward. The Sun Ra Arkestra is one of these ultra-rare musical entities. The avant-garde space jazz big band lost their founder and spiritual leader when Sun Ra passed on from the Earthly plane in 1993 at age 80. But the spiritual power of the bands music called for more, and so it was that long-time band saxophonist Marshall Allen would soon take the helm of the Arkestra to guide the group forward into the 21st century.

Now having experienced 93 solar returns himself, Allen is a heroic testament to the spiritually rejuvenating power of this music that goes beyond standard jazz to incorporate elements of myth, ritual, Afro-psychedelia, and futurism. Theres no other band quite like the Sun Ra Arkestra, as displayed in the early 70s film Space Is the Place, where Ra starred as himself in the role of a jazz master from Saturn who travels in a spaceship propelled by the power of his music. He took on bad guys from the FBI, NASA, and other supernatural villains in between concert performances because he wasnt just on a musical mission, he was out to help save humanitys soul with spiritual enlightenment about a better way of life.

With music, he would reach across the border of reality with myth; with music, he could build a bridge to another dimension, to something better; dance halls, clubs, and theaters could be turned into sacred shrines, the sites of dramas and rituals. And though people would be drawn to hear the music, it was they who would become the instrument on which it would resonate, on which he would create the sound of silhouettes the images and forecasts of tomorrow all of it disguised as jazz, writes author John F. Szwed in his 1997 biography Space is the Place: The Life and Times of Sun Ra .

In summing up Ras legacy, Szwed goes on to write, Music could provide a metaphysical experience through which one could enter the sublime, and come to know the cosmos. He understood music to be a universal language, and something akin to religion. Music could convey more than feelings about phenomena; it could express its essence, and thus could disclose secrets of nature not available to reason, secrets which reveal the true nature of the world. If that sounds similar to the semi-shamanic experience of a Grateful Dead or Phish show, it should come as no surprise that Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio recruited Marshall Allen and other Arkestra members to play in his 1996 free jazz project Surrender to the Air.

The chance to engage in such a metaphysical musical experience generates a buzz of anticipation as fans fill the SF Jazz Center on this Friday evening for what is the second show of a four-night stand. When the band hits the stage, the ensemble is adorned in their classic regalia of colorful, shiny outfits that blend a futuristic space age vibe with a tribal archaic revival. There are at least a dozen band members, with multiple percussionists, guitar, bass and a female vocalist accompanying the horn section and keyboards. A dissonant voice announces an arrival: People of Earth, prepare! The band cranks up their instruments and begin to conjure an otherworldly sound.

The uninitiated who have attended out of curiosity are tested early on as Allen leads the group through a wildly dissonant free jazz space jam that pushes the boundaries of Earthly harmonics. Such freeform jams are a longtime hall mark of the Arkestra, which can make sorting through their hundreds of recordings a tall task for those seeking more traditional jazz stylings. But theres a method to the madness here as Allen acts as the conductor, engaging each band member to help reel in the jam and bring it back down to terra firma for a big finish. The set then mostly takes on a more harmonically pleasing sound in the traditional big band mode, yet still featuring eclectic sonic landscapes and some great improv.

The first set goes by in a dazzling flash, leaving some realizing they should have had some dinner first. But the SF Jazz Center features a cocktail lounge with a full kitchen where hungry travelers of the interstellar low ways can still grab a bite and a craft beer at halftime. The second set moves to a higher level of metaphysics and musicality as the Arkestra opens with the classic Interplanetary Music. Multiple members sing of Interplanetary harmonies to kick off an extended jam that features an array of horn solos over a blend of electric piano and polyrhythms that light up the evening. The space journey continues with Neptune, as the female vocalist sings, Have you heard the latest news from Neptune? Its a bit more of a low-key jazz tune, save for the dissonant sonic blasts of sax and trumpet that assure this is no standard number. A funky piano part kicks off the traditional jazz classic Big Johns Special, and when the swinging horn section kicks in, it sounds a lot like the band from the Mos Eisley Cantina on Luke Skywalkers home planet of Tatooine.

Another uplifting jazzy jam finds the vocalists imploring the audience, Free your mind, be yourself, watch your soul shine Here several of the horn players move out into the crowd in a New Orleans style second line procession, raising the festive atmosphere yet another notch. But they dont just explore the pit area, they also come down the stairs from the second level, stopping to play at different locations to give some audience members personal solos for uplifting vibrational healings. Legendary UFOlogist Jacques Vallee built off the close encounters scale of his mentor J. Allen Hynek by suggesting that a CE4 would describe cases when witnesses experienced a transformation of their sense of reality (as opposed to a CE3, which is an encounter where occupants of a UFO are merely present.) The entire show is akin to a CE4, especially these encounters with band members that occur up close and personal.

The Arkestra brings the show to a climactic conclusion by announcing the introduction of a classic Sun Ra composition, Angels and Demons at Play. Allen leads the Arkestra in building a steady groove with layers of rich melodies over a tribal beat, with a torchy female vocal about those feisty angels and demons on the cosmic plane. Allen conjures some otherworldly sax tones here, helping paint a majestic sonic landscape that dazzles the senses.

In the end, its like suddenly being returned to Earth after an adventurous cosmic voyage on the Arkestras sonic spaceship. Allen invites attendees to return the next night because tomorrow will be all different, the hallmark of any improvisational band worth its salt. The Sun Ra Arkestra remains one of the longest-running and most influential acts in music history, a testament to how the immense power of music with spiritual intention can outlive even those who create it.

Greg M. Schwartz has covered music and pop culture for PopMatters since 2006. He focuses on events coverage with a preference for guitar-driven rock 'n' roll, but has eclectic tastes for the golden age of sound that is the 21st century music scene. He has a soft spot for music with a socially conscious flavor and is also an award-winning investigative reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @gms111, where he's always looking for tips on new bands or under the radar news items.

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A Science Writer Embraces Buddhism as a Path to Enlightenment – New York Times

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Photo Robert Wright

OMS LAW: To the extent that Buddhism encourages its practitioners to cast aside the self on their way to enlightenment, it can seem like a fools errand. The self isnt so easy to shed, as Buckaroo Bonzai noted: No matter where you go, there you are. But that doesnt mean theres no wisdom to be found in the effort. The journalist Robert Wright a practicing Buddhist who often explores the intersection of science and religion, as in his 2009 best seller The Evolution of God makes the case for a Zen lifestyle in his latest book, Why Buddhism Is True, new at No. 4 in hardcover nonfiction.

Wright has been a spiritual seeker for a long time. In 2002 he founded a video site called MeaningofLife.tv, in which he talked to various people about matters relating to (wait for it) the meaning of life. Hes still editor in chief, and last month participated in a conversation posted there with the Buddhist author and emergency room doctor Daniel Ingram. The video, which touches on everything from current politics to Buddhist sociopaths to Wrights own level of spiritual attainment, offers an endearing look at Wright fumbling toward ecstasy. It also suggests that meditation can echo more pharmaceutical paths to enlightenment.

On my first retreat I had an experience that bordered on hallucinogenic, that had to do with viewing the interior of my mind, Wright says as Ingram beams an encouraging, euphoric grin his way. And at first I was, like, Whoa. I mean, this is my first retreat, right? And at first its like red and purple and Im like: Whoa. This is a new place. And then, what I observed was actually in a sense that thought, except that, for the first time, what it looked like was one entity saying it to another, and I realized it was kind of like the inside of my mind. I dont actually consider that the most interesting proximity to not-self that Ive had. But anyway, there is that. Such experiences, he added, can convince you that our ordinary way of seeing things is pretty deeply confused. You have apprehensions that are quite different from your ordinary way of experiencing things. Like and this is another version related to not-self youre meditating on a retreat, and you feel that the tingling in your foot is no more a part of you than a bird thats singing, right?

Right, Ingram said. That tingling is actually important, because thats impermanence, and thats vibrations

Actually, Wright interrupted, this may have just been a tingling in my foot. I dont mean this may not have been a special tingling.

Follow Gregory Cowles on Twitter @GregoryCowles

A version of this list appears in print on August 27, 2017, on Page BR32 of the Sunday Book Review.

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A Science Writer Embraces Buddhism as a Path to Enlightenment - New York Times

Youngstown news, Richmond doesn’t belong in YSU’s football family – Youngstown Vindicator

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Published: Sun, August 20, 2017 @ 12:00 a.m.

Richmond doesnt belong in YSUs football family

I completely agree with a recent letter condemning the decision of Youngstown State University to allow Mr. Malik Richmond to be part of the football team even if he will never play. I am a community health provider who treats drug addicts at local clinics. Most, whether male or female, have been sexually abused. Having even a contrite Mr. Richmond as part of the YSU football family is wrong. It is a slap in the face to victims of sexual violence.

There is no more enthusiastic college football fan than myself. I also am a student of A Course in Miracles, which teaches forgiveness as the path to spiritual enlightenment. However, a college football team is the wrong venue for the redemption of Mr. Richmond. It sends the wrong message and has made YSU the target of nationwide criticism (i.e., the Aug. 11 column in the NY Daily News by Evan Grossman).

There are other meaningful ways that Mr. Richmond can make a contribution, such as advocating against sexual violence within mens groups. I support his right to higher education completely. But football Coach Bo Pelini, President James Tressel, and others really got it wrong this time.

Susan J. Sabo, MD, MPH, Avon, Ohio

Parole hearing for Poullas killers reflects immorality

I cant believe that I feel so compelled to write this letter, only because I believe our justice system is so flawed in many areas.

What is it about the Ohio Parole Board members who dont get the judgment life in prison? Who on this parole board would be so blas and apathetic toward low-life criminals who dont deserve the distinction of human being if what they did to Elaine Poullas back on June 3, 1979, was done to one of your loved ones?

I refer to David Jacobs (A156579), and Charles Teague (A156577-SB2). Why is there even a hearing for anyone convicted of a heinous crime? Why should taxpayers even have to support this scum of the earth, when we know what would have happened to them if they had committed this crime in, say, Singapore?

Our liberal society continues to move so far left that immorality is becoming the norm. Believe me, if these so called human beings get paroled, it will be highly immoral without justification.

God bless the Poullas family and their close friends. Let us all fight the battle to keep these two, whatever they are, behind bars.

Robert DeFelice, Poland

Ban exotic animals from being kept as house pets

The plight of an Ohio woman who made a desperate call to 911 after her boa constrictor clamped down on her face begs the question: Why is it legal to keep these dangerous animals as pets?

A Florida toddler was killed in her crib by the familys pet python and two Canadian boys were strangled to death by an escaped snake. People have been airlifted to hospitals after being bitten by captive snakes and neighborhoods have been evacuated when they made a break for it, costing taxpayers money and putting first responders at risk.

Contact with reptiles either directly or simply touching things theyve come in contact with also poses a serious risk of contracting Salmonella, which kills nearly 400 people annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most reptiles captured or bred for the pet trade end up ignored and neglected in cramped aquarium tanks or dark basements and garages. When the novelty wears off, many are simply dumped outside like trash, where theyll starve to death or die of exposure or predation. Those who survive can wreak havoc on local ecosystems.

How many people and animals must suffer and die before lawmakers ban exotic pets?

Jennifer OConnor, Norfolk, Va.

Jennifer OConnor is a senior writer for the PETA Foundation.

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Youngstown news, Richmond doesn't belong in YSU's football family - Youngstown Vindicator

Samuel L. Jackson’s 10 Best Roles – Paste Magazine

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Just like many kids of the 90s, the first time I truly noticed Samuel L. Jacksonas the acting powerhouse and all around bastion of badassery was when he took a bite out of Bretts burger before delivering, with great vengeance and furious anger, one of cinemas most iconic monologues. As much of a star-making turn as Jacksons amateur monk/hit man in Pulp Fiction was, I gradually realized at the time that his genius has been brewing in many a supporting or even background role for pretty much a decade up to that point. He was the smooth-talking voice of reason DJ in Do the Right Thing, the tragic crackhead brother in Jungle Fevereven in a bit part as a robber in Coming to America he managed to make this mark.

Since Pulp Fiction, Jackson has been a staple of pop culture: Hes the consummate definition of a versatile actor, delivering countless different types of characters with incredible attention to detail and work ethic. Not only is he the go-to guy when you need a quick injection of effortless charisma into your blockbuster, but hes proven himself to be invaluable when it comes to subtle and delicate dramatic performances as well.

Hes such an important part of our livesevery baby born after the mid-90s has to learn speech, gross motor skills and Samuel L. Jacksonquotes to survive in this world. So we thought, with the upcoming release of the Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds vehicle The Hitmans Bodyguard, wed revisit the best performances of this great actor and greater employer of curse words. As you might guess, there are a lot of memorable Samuel L. Jacksonperformances from which to choose. Hell, the man currently has a whopping 175 acting credits on IMDB. Its hard to pick just ten when it comes to the purple lightsaber master.

So hold onto your butts, here are the 10 best Samuel L. Jacksonperformances:

10. Zeus Carver, Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

As Zeus, the no-nonsense Harlem storeowner forced to join hardcore detective and unluckiest person alive, John McClane (Bruce Willis), on a deadly scavenger hunt across New York City, Jackson brings new energy to a franchise that was already on the verge of becoming stale. If youre uncertain as to how important it is to pick the right second banana with enough natural presence to boost Williss one-liner machine, consider: Jai Courtney in A Good Day to Die Hard. Not only does Jackson perfectly balance a well-needed dose of calm with some intense energy, he also delivers one of the best lines of his career: Dont fuck with me or Ill shove a lightning bolt up your ass!

9. Mister Seor Love Daddy, Do the Right Thing (1989)

Seor Love Daddy, the smooth and friendly neighborhood DJ in Spike Lees still painfully relevant masterpiece about American race relations, works as a Greek chorus to the ever-rising tension that takes place during the hottest day of the summer in 1989. The film opens with a jarring call to the audience to Wake up! and recognize the racial inequality and oppression that exists all around them, and ends with a solemn request for solidarity and peace. Jackson puts so much depth and character in the relatively small role, that this character is still, to get personal for a moment, such an important part of my life that I imagine Seor Love Daddy still filling the airwaves with silky tunes and the occasional Public Enemytrack dedicated to the memory of Radio Raheem (RIP Bill Nunn).

8. Ordell Robbie, Jackie Brown (1997)

AK-47! The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively, got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes, boasts cocky gangster Ordell Robbie in what is easily Tarantinos most underrated film. It was clear from Pulp Fiction that Tarantino had found his muse in Jackson, but it was their second collaboration that really solidified their bond. There were so many ways this character, the chief antagonist to Pam Griers slick and smart flight attendant, could have gone horribly wrong. On paper and upon first look, he comes across as a spoof of a blacksploitation clich. Yet while Jackson effortlessly delivers those cocksure Tarantino lines with expected gusto, he gradually adds layers to Ordell Robbie, revealing the inherent insecurity and fear hiding under his insatiable ego. By the time hes cornered in the third act, Robbie is a psychopath who earns your pity.

7. Louis Batiste, Eves Bayou (1997)

Writer/director Kasi Lemmons tender, bold and vastly underrated drama gave Jackson a chance to shine with an atypically subtle character. In Eves Bayou he plays a respected doctor in Louisiana whos accused by his daughter (Jurnee Smollett) of not only cheating on her mother, but of something far more despicable. Lemmons expertly strips all possibly lazy melodramatic moves from her emotionally charged story in order to get to barer truth, and Jackson steps up to the plate to deliver one of his best dramatic performances. This character could have easily turned into a one-dimensional Lifetime Channel villain, but Jackson digs always deeper to make sure that we get a lot more than that.

6. Valentine, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

Jacksons hilarious turn as the eccentric (correction: batshit crazy) tech magnate with a final solution to global warming showcases how much fun he can have on screen. As powerful and dangerous as he is, Jacksons Valentine comes across as a petulant child with a dipshit skaters fashion sense, an aversion to violence (even though his goal is wipe out 99.9% percent of Earths population) and a pronounced lisp that makes him sound exactly like the larger-than-life bad guy hes supposed to be, perfectly fitting the hard-R-rated Saturday morning cartoon tone of Kingsman. The sequels villain has a lot to live up to.

5. Doyle Gipson, Changing Lanes (2002)

In another uncharacteristically melancholic and subtle performance by Jackson, he plays Doyle Gibson, an alcoholic divorce whose already chaotic world turns upside down after an unfortunate car accident makes him late for his kids custody hearing. Jackson is able to craft a believably tragic figure in Roger Michells thoughtful drama about the kind of casual racism that people of color experience every day. Jacksons mournful yet ultimately empowering monologue about Gipsons ideal Tiger Woods commercial perfectly encapsulates the bitter love-hate dynamic at the core of the film.

4. Carl Lee Hailey, A Time to Kill (1996)

The first thing that comes to everyones mind is Jackson screaming with trademark fury, Yes they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell! As iconic as that moment is in Jacksons filmography, the transcendent way he communicates the unbearable pain and anger of a father whose daughter was brutally raped (by a group of Klan members, no less) transforms an otherwise mediocre John Grisham adaptation, amongst many, as one of the most memorable courtroom thrillers of the 1990s.

3. Gator Purify, Jungle Fever (1991)

A performance so good, the Cannes Film Festivalcreated a Best Supporting Actor Award specifically to honor Jacksons haunting turn as the protagonists (Wesley Snipes) crackhead brother. Jackson used his own struggles with drug addiction to bring a stunning level of realism to Gator, once again serving as the only memorable part in an otherwise flawed and fairly forgettable film. Spike Lees study of interracial relationships tries to cram too many themes into its already bloated runtime, but the heartbreaking push-and-pull between Gator and his parents (Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis), which culminates in a tragic climax, is the one narrative element that Lee develops to its utmost potential. We have Jacksons fearless dive into the character to thank for that.

2. Elijah Price, Unbreakable (2000)

(Note: Spoilers for this 17-year-old film follow.) The fact that Jacksons Elijah Price is a relatively grounded supervillain amongst comic book movie tropes is of course by design, thanks to M. Night Shyamalans (at the time) unique approach to the genre, but it also shouldnt stop this character from taking his rightful place next to some of the most famous nemeses of all time. Unbreakable builds a formidable hero out of Bruce Williss seemingly indestructible protagonist, but a hero is only as good as his villainwhich is where Jacksons calm and calculated comic book art dealer comes into play, whose sadness hiding underneath a meticulously sustained veneer of emotional detachment gives depth to a character who otherwise might have ended up as a parody of such a personality. This role is a prime example of Jacksons ability to communicate formidable intensity without saying a single word.

1. Jules Winnfield, Pulp Fiction (1994)

What other role could have possibly taken the top spot? Twenty-three years later, there are two indisputable facts about Tarantinos game changer: It influenced more filmmakers and film students than any other movie of its generation, and every frame in which Samuel L. Jacksons gangster-going-through-spiritual-enlightenment character appears is an absolute delight. In or out of context, Jules is one of those iconic characters whos immediately entertaining and captivating. Did Jules eventually learn how to be the shepherd? Its hard to tell, but with the sheer amount of indelible roles hes filled, Samuel L. Jackson seems to be committed to answering that for himself.

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Samuel L. Jackson's 10 Best Roles - Paste Magazine

Enlightenment with Herbie Hancock – Daily Utah Chronicle

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At the start of his bands concert, Herbie Hancock noted that he feels like a refugee from Mars, loves science fiction, and contemplates moving to another area. This simple quote was a harbinger of the idiosyncratic Sunday night that followed at Red Butte Garden on August 20, 2017. After stating his feelings, Hancock then declared that my wife is here and she would kill me for talking too much tonight! True to his laconic words, the two hour set engendered a triumphantly transcendental feeling.

The moving music included soothe saxophone solos, gutting guitar, peaceful piano progressions, and deafening drums. Drawing on a myriad of genres that encompassed jazz, funk, electronic, and classical, the eclectic instrumentation was marked by abrupt changes in volume and tempo. The music was occasionally sprinkled with chanting, a nod to Hancocks spiritual practice of reciting the Mahayana Buddhist chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo every day.

The aforementioned chant, from the Lotus Sutra, emphasizes that all individuals are capable of Buddhahood. The concoction created by Hancock on Sunday night undoubtedly inspired a feeling that everyone is capable of enlightenment. In nod to their unique spirit, the band ended with a jazz funk encore that got the jovial crowd dancing even in nirvana.

Herbie Hancock At Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City

Herbie Hancock waves to the crowd prior to the start of his band's concert at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Herbie Hancock plays the keyboard at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

James Genus plays the bass at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Lionel Loueke sings and plays guitar at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Terrace Martin plays the saxophone at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Terrace Martins sings and plays the keyboard at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Lionel Loueke, left, and James Genus, right, perform at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Herbie Hancock, left, and Vinnie Colaiuta, right, perform at Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Terrace Martin, center, sings while Lionel Loueke, left, and James Genus, right, perform at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Vinnie Colaiuta plays the drums at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Lionel Loueke sings while James Genus plays bass at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

Herbie Hancock plays the keytar while Lionel Loueke, left, and James Genus, right, perform at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. (Dr. Rishi Deka | Daily Utah Chronicle)

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Enlightenment with Herbie Hancock - Daily Utah Chronicle

The Power of Virtual Reality – HuffPost

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Virtual Reality is clearly a very powerful medium. Its capacity for illusion is so strong that, for example, one is able to help patients with phantom limb pain. Thrive Global posted an article earlier this summer that inquired into the possibilities of using VR for mental health.

Its really about illusion, Alex Miller, a computer scientist creating virtual realities for the neurology department at the University of Pennsylvania, says: you manipulate what a patient sees in their virtual self and their virtual world, and their brains will literally incorporate these things into the body image. While still early, results indicate that using the Penn neurology games does indeed reduce the intensity of phantom limb pain.

Oxford psychiatrist and VR specialist Daniel Freeman told Thrive Global: VR could become the method of choice for psychological treatment out with the couch, on with the headset.

When in the VR environment, because of the embodied quality mentioned above the power resides in its unique ability to immerse. In other words one embodies the experience one sees. However, what are the pitfalls of such possibilities?

What is the possible dark side of VR/AR in conjunction with AI especially? How can we manage these more difficult and potentially risky aspects?

To answer some of these concerns please find below another snippet from the event at AWE ( Augmented World Expo in Silicon Valley) of Techforgood under the auspices of the Virtual World Society (organization founded by the grandfather of VR Tom Furness focused on building better lives with VR) and DigitalRaign (new tech impact community and accelerator focused on Tech for good) .

Phil Lelyveld of the USC Entertainment Technology Center was also a part of the special tract at AWE on Tech for Good. In his presentation he pointed out that Artificial Intelligence will inform our world view from here on out. And therefore, it will also reshape Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality as it already is: Facebook is already integrating AI into AR (article in Wired for more details). Additionally the Internet of Things will also be connected to VR/AR/MR and AI, which in turn therefore will also inform the robotics sector. Because of the sheer scope of the movement, and the many businesses employed in the new technologies sector, it is crucial to understand that there may be an incredible lack of security protections in the field of VR/AR/MR. This lack of security may be relevant to everyone in the very near future, if not already now. This challenge may in turn add complexity and cost, factors that up until now Phil points out, have not been properly addressed.

What are possible solutions to this complex set of challenges?

-give people control over their own data

-create a marketplace for the exchange of data

-make privacy and anonymity a starting point

Most urgently the concern rests with the possible impact of AI and VR/AR/MR.

Here Philip suggests various possibilities:

is the data used good, reliable and reasonable?

what is the goal for the data?

is there a discrepancy caused by diversity or are there errors in assumptions and design that could help or hurt specific populations?

Is there a long term monitoring set up that will check for feed back loops that may bloom into biases over long term use?

AI is a new technology and whilst it has been established that machines can now learn to learn no one really knows the outcome yet: we can build these models but we dont know how they work. (Joel Dudley, Deep Patient team leader, Mount Sinai Hospital, NY from MIT Technology Review).

Why is this important? It leaves the human being open for emotional manipulation in VR/AR/MR. Research shows that the concept of the self is very fragile, through embodiment and through the impact of these platforms on self image and self worth (Mel Slater, ICREA, Research Professor at University of Barcelona, Spain. Leader of the Experimental Virtual Environments- EVENT Lab for Neuroscience and Technology).

The factors that make VR/AR/MR so appealing to use in therapeutic settings make it equally vulnerable to this dark side of manipulation or abuse of data for gain. The AI audit proposed by Phil Lelyveld is a clear start to setting up necessary boundaries and checks in the field.

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3 Ways Virtual Reality Is Transforming Medical Care | NBC News – NBCNews.com

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Aug.22.2017 / 2:13 PM ET

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Think virtual reality is just about gaming and the world of make-believe? Get real. From product design to real estate, many industries have adopted VR and related technologies and nowhere are the benefits of VR greater than in healthcare.

We are seeing more and more of this incorporated faster than ever before, said Dr. Ajit Sachdeva, Director of Education with the American College of Surgeons. VR has reached a tipping point in medicine.

As NBC News MACH reported previously, psychologists have found VR to be good for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. And stroke doctors, pain specialists, surgeons, and other medical practitioners have found their own uses for VR. In some cases, medical VR involves the familiar headsets; in others, 3D glasses and special video screens give a VR-like experience.

The use of VR and 3D visualization technology in medicine isnt brand-new. Medical researchers have been exploring ways to create 3D models of patients internal organs using VR since the 1990s. But advances in computing power have made simulated images much more realistic and much faster to create.

X-rays, CT scans, and MRI scans can now be turned into high-resolution 3D images in under a minute, said Sergio Agirre, chief technology officer of EchoPixel, a Mountain View, California firm whose visualization software is being used in hospitals across the U.S. Twenty years ago, it would probably take them a week to be able to do that.

These days, common surgical procedures like appendectomies or cesarean sections are often pretty routine one case is similar to the next. But some especially complicated procedures including the separation of conjoined twins present unique challenges that can be met only with meticulous planning. For these, 3D visualization is proving to be a game-changer.

Recently, VR played a vital role in the successful separation of conjoined twins at Masonic Childrens Hospital in Minneapolis. The three-month-old twins were joined far more extensively than some other conjoined twins, with intricate connections between their hearts and livers. That meant the surgery to separate the twins would be unusually complicated and potentially very dangerous for the twins.

Before surgery, the surgical team took CT, ultrasound, and MRI scans and created a super-detailed virtual model of the twins bodies and then ventured inside their organs to identify potential pitfalls and plan how these would be avoided during surgery.

You look through the 3D glasses, and you can basically walk through the structure, peeling apart parts so you can look at exactly what you want to, said Dr. Anthony Azakie, one of the surgeons who separated the twins. He said the high-resolution visualization helped minimize the number of surprises that we were potentially dealing with.

VR technology is also being used by vascular specialists like Dr. In Sup Choi, director of interventional neuroradiology at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts. When he uses interactive 3D visualizations to prepare for procedures to fix aneurysms and blocked arteries, he said, he gets a better idea of what types of devices we have to use and what approach might work best.

If doctors are donning VR gear, so are their patients. Theyre using the headsets to immerse themselves in a peaceful virtual world that takes their focus off discomfort associated with medical problems and treatments.

Because anesthesia and sedation can be risky for some patients, including those who are frail or very elderly, some hospitals are offering these patients VR headsets as a way to help control pain during minimally invasive procedures. Its still experimental at this point, but the results so far have been successful.

Similarly, VR has been shown to reduce anxiety in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy infusions. VR is even making injections and other painful or potentially frightening procedures less distressing to children.

But burn patients may be some of the biggest beneficiaries of VR technology. From daily cleaning and bandaging of burns to skin grafts, severe burn patients experience some of the most painful procedures in medicine, said Dr. Hunter Hoffman, a University of Washington scientist with expertise in the use of VR for pain relief. Pain medications help, but theyre often not strong enough.

For these patients, Hoffman helped create the VR game SnowWorld, which features imagery designed specifically to distract burn patients from pain. Patients who play the game during treatment report up to 50 percent less pain than similar patients not playing the game, according to preliminary research. Other research suggests that patients playing the game actually show changes in the brain that indicate theyre feeling less pain.

SnowWorld is now being evaluated in clinical trials at four sites in the U.S. and at two international sites.

VR shouldnt be considered a replacement for pain-killing medication, Hoffman said, adding that combining drugs and VR could be especially effective.

VR is also helping patients overcome balance and mobility problems resulting from stroke or head injury.

Using VR, I can control whats going on around the patient and measure what kind of impact its having on that patients ability to change, said Emily Keshner, a professor of physical therapy at Temple University in Philadelphia. We expose them to this repeatedly and we give them feedback about how they can respond to prevent themselves from falling.

Research has shown that VR-mediated rehabilitation can speed the pace at which these patients regain physical abilities. Theres a long way to go in conducting all the research needed to validate these results and make these techniques part of routine practice, Keshner said but its on the way.

One study of stroke patients showed that VR rehab led to more improvements in arm and hand movement compared to conventional rehab after four weeks of therapy. The VR-assisted patients had better mobility when the doctors checked in two months later. Other research has shown similarly successful outcomes for patients with cerebral palsy undergoing rehab for balance problems.

The power of VR [for therapy] is that youre really changing the way people perceive the world, Keshner said. They learn how to respond. And after practicing in that virtual world, they are much more confident and capable.

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Samsung’s virtual reality strategy has an upgrade problem – TechCrunch

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Today, Samsung showed off its flagship Note 8, the device has a big, beautiful screen, the S Pen and a battery thats a little bit smaller. The company also announced that theres a new $130 Gear VR on the way that youll have to buy if you want to try Samsungs brand of VR on the Note 8.

Whats new over past models? Not much.

Samsung has made several upgrades to the Gear VR headset since the device, which was built in conjunction with Oculus, was first introduced in 2015. The company added a little controller earlier this year and has continued shuffling buttons around, but for the most part these updates have just been focused on supporting the expanding sizes of new Samsung smartphones.

While headsets like the Daydream View from Google (Which Samsung launched S8 support for last month) are fairly future-proof when it comes to new devices thanks to NFC communication being used to perform the calibration, the flush physical connection through the phones bottom port on the Gear VR has required users to buy new headsets or connectors for bigger Samsung devices with different ports.

Googles Daydream View

Its not a big deal at all for those who are buying the headset for the first time but for those on a yearly upgrade cycle with the Galaxy or Note, its really annoying.

Youve seen the writing on the wall, the VR market is struggling as investors and founders deal with headset sales that arent meeting expectations. Its hard enough to get consumers to buy a headset once, Samsung expecting its die-hard customers to do it multiple times is a tall order.

Its obviously unwise to base the form factor of a major flagship device based on what can fit inside a mobile VR headset, but its also a little shortsighted for Samsung to have even forced that choice on itself. NFC would be great move if the platform could grow to support it. Something like a flush external cable may look a bit junky, but how sexy does a plastic headset you snap your phone into really have to be?

In January, the company announced that it had shipped 5 headsets and a lot of those were giveaways. Samsung shipped free Gear VR headsets with pre-orders for both the Galaxy S7 and S8 line and had a number of deals over the past couple years attempting to brute force their way into the VR market through giveaways.

As its smartphone upgrades shovel its old Gear VR headsets into obsolescence, it seems that Samsung is pretty much wasting a lot of these previous efforts. The Gear VR is due for a real upgrade to bring in a number of VR features, but its hardware also needs to mature to the point where its not alienating those who upgrade their Samsung phone every year or two.

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Samsung's virtual reality strategy has an upgrade problem - TechCrunch

KFC’s New Employee Training Game Is a Virtual Reality Nightmare … – Eater

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In case being a fast-food employee wasnt hard enough, KFC is now putting its workers through a bizarre initiation rite: a creepy BioShock-esque virtual reality escape room replete with narration from an omnipresent, mildly demonic-sounding Colonel Sanders. Cool!

Per a press release, the chain is incorporating the VR environment experienced via Oculus Rift headsets into its employee training program to show trainees how to make its signature Original Recipe fried chicken. In order to get out of the virtual escape room, employees will have to play as a pair of disembodied hands to demonstrate (virtual) mastery of the five-step cooking process inspecting, rinsing, breading, racking, and pressure-frying all the while being cajoled by a cackling Colonel.

But why? The press release notes that this VR exercise takes workers through the chicken cooking process in just 10 minutes, as opposed to the 25 minutes it takes IRL, so perhaps the idea here is to speed up the training process (and to avoid potentially wasting product). Or hey, maybe somebody at KFC HQ just got a really good deal on a whole pallet of Oculus Rifts.

KFC has delved into plenty of weird tech recently see the takeout box that also functions as a phone charger and the chicken bucket that incorporates a photo printer but those are typically limited availability items that serve more as publicity stunts, rather than demonstrations of new technology the company is actually incorporating.

Experience KFCs fast-food dystopian nightma err, virtual reality training environment, below:

9 of the Weirdest Things KFC Has Done to Sell Chicken [E]

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KFC's New Employee Training Game Is a Virtual Reality Nightmare ... - Eater

Walking through space in NASA’s Virtual Reality Lab – The Verge

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Astronauts arent made in a day. To first qualify for a mission assignment in space, NASAs astronaut candidates typically have to complete up to two years of training here on Earth. And that includes a rotating roster of activities, workouts, and assignments that change every single day.

Perhaps the biggest aspect of astronaut training is learning to work in simulated space environments, something we explore in the second episode of Space Craft. For NASA, a crucial asset is the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, a giant pool located at the Sonny Carter Training Facility in Houston, Texas. It measures 202 feet long and 102 feet wide a little less than half the size of a football field. It also stretches 40 feet deep and houses a full-scale replica of the International Space Station inside. Working in the pool is one of the best ways to train for future spacewalks, since its a pretty fair representation of how it feels to work in microgravity outside the ISS.

Perhaps the biggest aspect of astronaut training is learning to work in simulated space environments

But there are other ways to simulate spacewalks apart from diving into the NBL. NASA was an early adopter of virtual reality, using the technology over the last decade to help astronauts train for upcoming space missions. NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston is home to the Virtual Reality Lab, where astronauts plan out their future excursions inside and outside the International Space Station.

VR is a useful tool for better understanding the scope of a spacewalk, for instance. It gives astronauts a sense of how far apart segments are going to be on the outside of the station, as well as how theyll need to grip handrails or twist their arms to properly scale the ISS modules. Astronauts who are assigned to missions in space usually plan months to years in advance for any of their spacewalks. And at the Virtual Reality Lab, they can simulate the exact spacewalk scenario that they need to practice over and over, before doing the real thing in lower Earth orbit.

While VR is good for making plans in advance, its also critical for preparing astronauts for the remote possibility of those plans failing. In the VR Lab, astronauts can also experience virtually what its like to get disconnected from the ISS during a spacewalk. Such a scenario has never happened accidentally before; astronauts are always tethered to the station when they do their spacewalks, but NASA likes to prepare for the remote possibility of an astronaut floating away freely. To get back to safety, astronauts can operate a jet backpack called SAFER, which uses tiny thrusters to propel someone through space. Its not the easiest tool to maneuver, however, and VR is great at demonstrating the difficulty of using SAFER in an emergency scenario.

The Johnson Space Center doesnt train astronauts with just VR technology. Its also home to the Systems Engineering Simulator, a facility that contains mock-ups of space vehicles that astronauts may be tasked to operate in the future. For instance, astronauts can train how to work in the future space capsules that SpaceX and Boeing are building, which will be carrying astronauts to the space station in the next couple of years. The facility also has mock-ups of rovers that can traverse other worlds, like Mars. Its a vehicle that astronauts probably wont be driving on Mars for decades, but thanks to the SES facility, at least theyll be somewhat prepared.

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Walking through space in NASA's Virtual Reality Lab - The Verge

Myanmar’s startups map past, shape future with virtual reality – Phys.Org

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August 23, 2017 by Phyo Hein Kyaw The data recorded by drones allows those with virtual reality headsets to explore Myanmar's temples,their crumbling centuries-old walls so close it feels like you can touch them

Gasps echo across the hall as the Myanmar school kids trial virtual reality goggles, marveling at a device that allows some of Asia's poorest people to walk on the moon or dive beneath the waves.

"In Myanmar we can't afford much to bring students to the real world experience," beamed Hla Hla Win, a teacher and tech entrepreneur taking virtual reality into the classroom.

"If they're learning about animals we can't take them to the zoo... 99 percent of parents don't have time, don't have money, don't have the means," she added.

Few countries in the world have experienced such rapid discovery of technology than Myanmar which has leapfrogged from the analogue to the digital era in just a few years.

During the decades of outright junta rule, which ended in 2011, it was one of the world's most isolated nations, a place where a mobile phone sim card could cost up to $3,000.

For half a century its paranoid generals cut off the country, restricting sales of computers, heavily censoring the Internet and blocking access to foreign media reports.

But today phone towers are springing up around the country and almost 80 percent of the population have access to the Internet through smartphones, according to telecoms giant Telenor.

Budding startups

Tech startups are emerging around the commercial capital Yangon, many seeking to improve the lives of rural people, most of whom still live without paved roads or electricity.

"The increase in activity from last year till nownew startups, more people determined to become entrepreneurs and working in the tech sector in generalis significant," said Jes Kaliebe Peterson, CEO of community hub Phandeeyar.

Virtual reality is the latest advance to cause a stir, with a handful of entrepreneurs embracing tech for projects including preserving ancient temple sites to shaping young minds of the future.

The Phandeeyar incubator works with more than 140 startups. Among them Hla Hla Win's virtual reality social enterprise 360ed which is using affordable cardboard VR goggles attached to smartphones to break down barriers in Myanmar's classrooms.

She founded the non-profit last year after 17 years working in the woefully underfunded education system in a bid to bring learning to life.

"I see it as an empathy machine where we can teleport ourselves to another place right away," she told AFP.

And it's not just school children who benefit from stepping into places they could only ever dream of visiting.

360ed has used virtual reality to help Myanmar teachers attend training courses in Japan and Finland and is working on setting up deals with schools in India, Pakistan, China and Bangladesh.

"With VR there's no divider, there's no distance," Hla Hla Win said.

Mapping the past

While 360ed is thinking about the future, Nyi Lin Seck is obsessed with the past.

Some 600 kilometres (372 miles) north of Yangon, the budding tech entrepreneur and founder of 3xvivr Virtual Reality Production launches a large drone into the skies above Bagan, one of Myanmar's most famous tourist sites.

The drone, which carries a 360-camera, circles one of the many ninth-to-thirteenth century temples that dot the landscape of what was once a sprawling ancient city.

The data it records allows those with virtual reality headsets to explore the temples, their crumbling centuries-old walls so close it feels like you can touch them.

A former head of the local TV station, Nyi Lin Seck says he makes most of his money providing virtual reality footage for hotels and luxury apartments.

But after an earthquake damaged the Bagan site last year, he vowed to use the tech to preserve a digital replica of Myanmar's archaeological treasures.

"A lot of artworks on the pagodas collapsed and were lost. Using this technology, we can record up to 99 percent of the ancient art," he says.

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Myanmar's startups map past, shape future with virtual reality - Phys.Org

Virtual Reality Platform Created For Lab Animals – IEEE Spectrum – IEEE Spectrum

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Scientists have devised a virtual reality platform for lab animals. Let that sink in.Zebrafish have swum with the aliens from the video game Space Invaders, mice were afraid of virtual heights, and fruit flies circled illusory obstacles.

This new holodeck for animals can help researchers see how freely-moving animals respond to a variety of illusionswork that could help scientists better understand human genes and brain circuitry, researchers say. The researchers, from the Vienna Biocenter in Austria, detailed their findings in todays edition of the journal Nature Methods.

FreemoVR, immersed animals in arenas where the walls or floors were computer displays. Each screen depicted photorealistic images that accounted for each animals perspective as it walked, flew, or swam.

Up to 10 high-speed cameras monitored the precise 3D position of each animal. FreemoVR then updated its video imagery within milliseconds of each animal's movements to create the 3D illusion that they were moving in environments that changed in response to their actions.

The researchers compared FreemoVR to the holodeck, a fictional environment in [the TV show] Star Trek in which humans enter a computer-controlled virtual world, says Andrew Straw, a neurobiologist at the Vienna Biocenter who was co-senior author of a paper detailing the study. They can freely move, have no need to wear special clothing or headgear, and are immersed in a computer-controlled environment, which can be made completely realistic or arbitrarily unrealistic.

The researchers tested FreemoVR on mice, fruit flies, and zebrafish, three species commonly used in lab research. The virtual landscape with which these animals interacted included vertical pillars, floating rings, checkerboard floors, virtual plants, and a swarm of digital aliens from Space Invaders. They even had distinctive portals that could instantly alter the virtual environments to make it seem as if zebrafish swimming into them had teleported elsewhere.

The animals apparently found the illusions realistic. For instance, fruit flies circled virtual pillars just as they did real ones placed in the platforms. Moreover, mice generally avoided tracks that looked as if they were suspended at great heights, just as they would in real life.

The animals also changed their behavior in response to illusory animals. For example, zebrafish normally circled the periphery of their fishbowl near the screens, but when teleported into settings with swarms of Space Invaders, the zebrafish tended to move toward the middle of the fishbowl.

We wanted to study collective behavior because that is something incredibly difficult to do with real animals or with robots, Straw says. "We wanted to show how real fish respond to the motion of a swarm of simulated agents and to show that we could create a hybrid biological-computational swarm.

In addition, the researchers developed a photorealistic model of a swimming fish, and showed that real zebrafish most reliably followed the digital fish when the virtual animal matched its swim direction to the real fish. The fact that researchers can vary the appearance of virtual animals from cartoonish to realistic will allow experiments to test how important the exact visual appearance of other animals is as opposed to, say, the pattern of motion, Straw says.

This new platform will let scientists investigate animals as they behave relatively naturally and unrestrained by conventional VR gear in realistic virtual environments they can manipulate extensively. By tinkering with animal DNA or brains in such experiments, the researchers can learn what role certain genes or brain circuits play in these animals, and potentially in humans as well. Brains evolved in the real world, and to understand how and why neural circuits process information in the way they do, we need to understand them in this context, Straw says.

Straw notes that humans would notice several imperfections with FreemoVR. Primary amongst those is that our system does not create two distinct views for the two eyes, and thus the stereo cues important for depth perception would be gone, he says. However, Straw notes this is not a major concern with the animals they are experimenting with; the eyes of these animals are so close together that the differences between the view from each eye are limited.

Straws lab is now conducting experiments where they can silence the activity of single brain cells in fruit flies and examining the roles these cells play in the insects behavior in virtual erality.

IEEE Spectrums biomedical engineering blog, featuring the wearable sensors, big data analytics, and implanted devices that enable new ventures in personalized medicine.

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