Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 88

*Anxiety and Religion

"There are no atheists in foxholes" is how the saying goes. At York University Ian McGregor, a psychology professor, and graduate students Kyle Nash, Mike Prentice, Nikki Mann and Curtis Phills set out to explore the conditions, aside from exploding bombs, that induce such religiosity.

Across all studies, anxious conditions caused participants to become more eagerly engaged in their ideals and extreme in their religious convictions. In one study, mulling over a personal dilemma caused a...

*Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

The second of the Isabel Dalhousie mysteries by Alexander McCall Smith, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate is, loosely, about a man with a transplanted heart who believes that he's having visions related to the death of his donor.

I say loosely because this is a meandering novel that is more about what people make of coincidence than it is about solving a mystery, though the mystery is solved in a way that is consistent with the main character's rational approach to life.

Isabel Dalhousie is an...

*Monday Aug 9/10

Bons voos nesta Quarta Sunset – Explore 3, originally uploaded by Márcia Horner.


Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography, Nature & Science Tagged: world of small

*Sun

The Not So Quiet Sun

(click on the photo to see the whole image)

From Apod:

Along with the erupting filaments and prominences, a small(!) solar flare spawned in the active region at the left was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), a billion-ton cloud of energetic particles headed for planet Earth. Making the 93 million mile trip in only two days, the CME impacted Earth's magnetosphere, triggering a geomagnetic storm and both northern and southern auroral displays.

From "Now I...

*Summer Heaven

These are the pleasures of my summer. In the category of wonders, yesterday I went to the Royal Ontario Museum with A and the girls to see the terracotta warriors of China. These are 2200 year old life size statues from the massive tomb complex of the first emperor of China, Qin Si Huang, accidentally discovered by farmers in the 1970′s. Even after 35 years, the excavation has barely scratched the surface of the thousands of clay statues, each a unique and realistic depiction of an a

*Saving Turtles

A bit of good news about the BP oil spill:

Filed under: Nature & Science Tagged: logger head sea turtle relocation

*Monday Aug 2/10

The Goddess of Compassion, Guan Yin, has a thousand arms to reach out to those who are suffering, and a thousand eyes to see them:

Filed under: A Monday Moment, China Tagged: goddess of compassion, Guan Yin

*Voluptuous Aging

I came across this personal account of aging while browsing the internet. It struck me as so lovely and positive and apropos of yesterday's post, that I wanted to share it. Here is Margaret Morganroth Gullette speaking from the Our Bodies Ourselves website:

[I:]n the shower one morning I made a discovery. As I was twisting to look back down my side, the curves of hip, buttock, thigh, calf, and ankle came into view — startlingly elegant, powerful, and voluptuous…

When friends complain about...

*Of Bras and Fruit Salad

You may remember my foray into a bra boutique last November. Having had some time to digest the experience and to wear the bra for which I paid a relative fortune, I'm thinking that there is a conspiracy afoot. I don't believe that it is a conspiracy of elites who want to take over the world. I don't even believe it is evil. I think it's the ordinary sort of conspiracy to which we are subjected daily, especially as women.
Oprah even has shows about it–not exposing the conspiracy but happily...

Monday July 26/10

Madeira: Sunset at Quinta das Colmeias, originally uploaded by Mr.Enjoy.

Sunset Dupont Street, Toronto, click to enlarge

Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography