American Buddhist Net

Friday, 27 June 2008
Written by Tracey Shelton and Nguon Sovan

Passing motorists who glance at the building beside a quiet stretch of National Road 5 in Kampong Chhnang province are likely to assume it's just another farm house.

But a closer look reveals something eerie about the house, known according to local legend as "the house the ghost bought."

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“My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is true and what is false, what is history, and what is myth.”
– Baron Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg, 1921

June 30th, 2008

“In Mongolia, there was a legend of the warrior prince, Beltis-Van. Noted for his ferocity and cruelty, he spilled “floods of human blood before he found his death in the mountains of Uliasutay.” His slayers interred the corpses of the Prince and his followers deep in earth, covered the graves with heavy stones, and added “incantations and exorcism lest their spirits again break out, carrying death and destruction.” These measures, it was prophesied, would bind the terrible spirits until human blood once more fell upon the site.

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By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

At 7:17am on 30 June 1908, an immense explosion tore through the forest of central Siberia.

Some 80 million trees were flattened over an area of 2,000 square km (800 square miles) near the Tunguska River.

The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked people to the ground 60km from the epicentre.

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Terrific photos, well-worth viewing. The shot of the Martian moon Phobos is stunning IMHO. ABN
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June 20, 2008 11:42 AM

Yesterday's announcement by NASA of the discovery of water ice on Mars by its Phoenix Lander probe made big news everywhere. The discovery involved the observation of water ice sublimating into the air - that is, the water went from solid to vapor state without reaching the liquid stage. The Martian atmosphere has perfect conditions for sublimation - extremely thin, dry and cold. How cold? Well, you can check the Live Martian Weather Report, with data from a station on board the Phoenix Lander. Today will see a high temperature of a toasty -26 degrees F.

What more do we know about Mars' atmosphere? It's hundreds of times thinner than Earth's atmosphere and is made of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and contains traces of oxygen, water, and methane. We also know, from observations that it can support dust storms, dust devils, clouds and gusty winds. With an amazing number of six current live probes exploring Mars (two rovers, a lander, and three orbiters), there are many thousands of images available. Only a few, however show atmospheric phenomena. Presented here are some of the best images of Martian atmosphere (and beyond) in action.

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by Keith Wakelam

Over the past twenty years Valerie Hunt, a Physical Therapist and Professor of Kinesiology at U.C.L.A. California, has developed a method of detecting certain peaks of high frequency electrical impulses within the human body, which she believes relate to a non-physical energy field surrounding the body. It corresponds to ancient teachings regarding the human aura and the system of vortices known as the Chakras.

Medical science has shown that all living creatures maintain electro-chemical processes in their bodies - human beings more so, because of the electrical activity of their brains. Complicated signal pulses are constantly being passed along nerve fibres throughout the body. Valerie's work involved the study of human muscle movement by means of Electromyographs. This instrument picks up the electro-chemical pulses sent along the nerves to activate the muscles. The strength of the muscle reaction depends solely upon the frequency of such pulses. The highest pulse frequency in the motor nerves is around 250 Hz.

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* 25 June 2008
* NewScientist.com news service
* Amanda Gefter

Is the matter in the universe arranged in a fractal pattern? A new study of nearly a million galaxies suggests it is – though there are no well-accepted theories to explain why that would be so.

Cosmologists trying to reconstruct the entire history of the universe have precious few clues from which to work. One key clue is the distribution of matter throughout space, which has been sculpted for nearly 14 billion years by the competing forces of gravity and cosmic expansion. If there is a pattern in the sky, it encodes the secrets of the universe.

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By Alexis Madrigal EmailJune 25, 2008 | 11:46:45 AMCategories: Mars

Martian_soil Drizzle once fell on Martian soil, according to a new geochemical analysis by Berkeley scientists, though the rain probably stopped several billion years ago.

Drawing on soil data from the five missions to Mars before the current Phoenix Lander and comparing it to information collected in Earth's driest places, the scientists concluded that water must have fallen from above, not welled up from below, as has been thought.

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25 June 2008 12:43

The British ministry of defence today faced calls to launch an official inquiry into a series of UFO sightings, including one filmed by a soldier on night patrol.

UFO experts believe the incidents, which happened in south Wales earlier this month, are 'particularly significant' because they included observations made by the crew of a police helicopter and military personnel.

The ministry confirmed today that it had been handed footage captured on a mobile phone by a corporal on guard duty at Tern Hill barracks, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, on 7 June.

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# 17:36 24 June 2008
# NewScientist.com news service
# Jason Palmer

Nature and nurture both play a role in eczema, but few genes have been linked to specific environmental risks. Now a gene mutation that predisposes youngsters to the skin condition seems to pose a greater risk if they are also exposed to cats.

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June 23, 2008

This creature was found by Russian soldiers on Sakhalin shoreline. Sakhalin area is situated near to Japan, it’s the most eastern part of Russia, almost 5000 miles to East from Moscow (Russia is huge). People don’t know what is it. According to the bones and teeth - it is not a fish. According to its skeleton - it’s not a crocodile or alligator. It has a skin with hair or fur. It has been said that it was taken by Russian special services for in-depth studies, and we are lucky that people who encountered it first made those photos before it was brought away.

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By Scott Snowden ? More by this author
Published Saturday 21st June 2008 07:39 GMT

The pilot of a police helicopter was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a UFO as the aircraft was returning to the Ministry of Defence base of St Athan, near Cardiff.

The three airmen described the unidentified flying object as "saucer-shaped", and proceeded to pursue, getting as far as the North Devon coast.

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Spirits and ghosts live almost everywhere in Thailand. Most large trees are said to have a ghost or spirit living inside of it and old trees are held in particular respect. The favourite place for female ghosts to live is in a banana grove. There are many species of banana plants in Thailand, but a 'tani' banana grove is the preferred haunting place.

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Jun 22, 2008
Mandy Locke

Hundreds of bait-shop crickets and earthworms escaped death by fishhook Saturday.

At an animal blessing and release ceremony in Cary, well-meaning Triangle Buddhists rescued them from a fate as bait for bass or bream.

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June 14, 2008
Bill Knell

Did Howard Hughes ever get a chance to view a captured or crashed UFO and its occupants? I have long pondered this question and there may now be an answer to it. According to a former employee of Hughes Aircraft, he did. The visit allegedly occurred not long after the crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. You may think this story belongs in the BELIEVE OR NOT file and you may be right, but I feel compelled to pass it on to you anyway.

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25 May 2008
By Jen Lavery

YOU have to ask why they didn't see it coming. Mediums and spiritualists are being forced to warn vulnerable customers that their services are not 'experimentally proven'.

European Union laws coming into force tomorrow will make clairvoyants admit that they have no evidence for their claims.

The new rules, to be enforced by the Office of Fair Trading, means mystics will have to display disclaimers, and faith healers, spiritualists and mediums will also have to post warnings to customers on websites and invoices.

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"Choices in the Afterlife: What We Can Do and Where We Can Go After Death," ChoicesPublishing: paper, 255 pages, $19.95

May 11, 2008
By Rebecca Rule

What if when we died we found what we expected — Peter at the gate, loved ones who went before us, our beloved pets, choirs of angels, a bevy of virgins, Jesus with open arms, solitude in a beautiful garden, or a cold dark empty nothingness?

What if our mind/soul/essence/spirit continued separate from our physical bodies? What if we continued to evolve as individuals in death just as in life? What if we had choices after death? To stay close to the physical world we knew (a ghostly presence); to reincarnate and return to life; to ascend to a higher spiritual level.

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Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing.

By Nick Bostrom
May/June 2008

People got very excited in 2004 when NASA's rover Opportunity discovered evidence that Mars had once been wet. Where there is water, there may be life. After more than 40 years of human exploration, culminating in the ongoing Mars Exploration Rover mission, scientists are planning still more missions to study the planet. The ­Phoenix, an interagency scientific probe led by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, is scheduled to land in late May on Mars's frigid northern arctic, where it will search for soils and ice that might be suitable for microbial life (see "Mission to Mars," November/December 2007). The next decade might see a Mars Sample Return mission, which would use robotic systems to collect samples of Martian rocks, soils, and atmosphere and return them to Earth. We could then analyze the samples to see if they contain any traces of life, whether extinct or still active.

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