The School of Life The ideology of Romanticism has been fatal to our chances of long-term happiness in modern relationships. Here, School of Life founder Alain de Botton delivers a lecture at the Sydney Opera House charting a wiser course for love. With deepest thanks to the team at the Opera House. Please subscribe here: http://tinyurl.com/o28mut7​ If you like our films take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/all/​ Brought to you by http://www.theschooloflife.com​ Produced in collaboration with The Sydney Opera House. #TheSchoolOfLife

Key to how universe works may have been discovered

Sarah Knapton March 23, 2021, 5:14 AM · (yahoo.com)

The key to understanding how the universe works may have been discovered by scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, in a breakthrough hailed as the most exciting in 20 years.

Particle physicists have seen signs that a mystery particle or force is interacting with other particles in a manner never witnessed before.

It may explain some of the deepest puzzles in modern physics, such as what dark matter is made from, or why there is an imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.

Currently, scientists understand the universe using The Standard Model, a theory which describes all the known fundamental particles and the forces that they interact with.

It sets out the workings of the building blocks of nature: quarks, leptons, force-carrier particles, and the Higgs boson.

But the Standard Model breaks down when it comes to explaining crucial issues such as gravity or why the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

It also cannot account for dark matter, an invisible substance which makes up 27 per cent of the mass of the universe and is thought to hold galaxies together.

To find out what is going on, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider created particles known as Beauty Quarks which existed soon after the Big Bang but which decay quickly into electrons and muons, and now no longer exist in nature.

But they discovered they are not behaving in the way they expected. Under the Standard Model, Beauty quarks should decay into particles called K+mesons which have either two muons or two electrons.

Scientists found that for every 100 mesons with electrons, there were just 85 with muons, something that cannot happen under the Standard Model.

It suggests never-before-seen particles or forces are tipping the scales away from muons.

Dr Mitesh Patel, from the Department of Physics at Imperial College, and one of the leading physicists behind the measurement, said: “We were actually shaking when we first looked at the results, we were that excited. Our hearts did beat a bit faster.

“It’s too early to say if this genuinely is a deviation from the Standard Model but the potential implications are such that these results are the most exciting thing I’ve done in 20 years in the field. It has been a long journey to get here.”

The LHC is the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider – it accelerates subatomic particles to almost the speed of light, before smashing them into each other.

These collisions produce a burst of new particles, which physicists then record and study in order to better understand the foundations of nature.

In the Standard Model, electrons and their heavier cousins, muons, are treated identically, so beauty quarks should decay into muons just as often as they do to electrons. The new result suggests that this is not happening.

Dr Paula Alvarez Cartelle, of the University of Cambridge, one of the team leaders, said: “This new result offers tantalising hints of the presence of a new fundamental particle or force that interacts differently with these different types of particles.

“The more data we have, the stronger this result has become. This measurement is the most significant in a series of results from the past decade that all seem to line up – and could all point towards a common explanation.

“The results have not changed, but their uncertainties have shrunk, increasing our ability to see possible differences with the Standard Model.”

Scientists say the latest result offers for the first evidence that there could be something wrong with our current understanding of particle physics.

But there are still concerns it may be a fluke, and Bristol University particle physics group is currently trying to confirm the results.

Dr Konstantinos Petridis of the University of Bristol’s School of Physics, one of the physicists behind the measurement, said: “This has been a seven-year saga. Over this period, we have been seeing clues of a new unexplained process at work, but the effects were too subtle to draw any conclusions.

“We are very excited about this result but remain cautious as well.

“The discovery of a new force in nature is the holy grail of particle physics. Our current understanding of the constituents of the universe falls remarkably short – we do not know what 95 percent of the Universe is made of or why there is such a large imbalance between matter and anti-matter.”

The experiment is expected to start collecting new data next year, following an upgrade to the detector.

The result was announced today at the Moriond Electroweak Physics conference and published as a preprint.

(Contributed by Janet Cornwell, H.W., m.)

Continue reading Beauty Quarks →

The School of Life We are collectively obsessed with the idea that an attractive person is, first and foremost, someone who looks terrific. But that’s to ignore the widespread phenomenon of the objectively good looking individual who nevertheless fails to hold much appeal – and vice versa. Here is a guide to the psychology of that too seldom earnestly-studied issue: hotness. Sign up to our new newsletter and get 10% off your first online order of a book, product or class: https://bit.ly/2LayJ9F​ For gifts and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://bit.ly/2MZghp4​ Our website has classes, articles and products to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://bit.ly/2H2vJNi​ FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://bit.ly/2KDkrQG​ “Understandably enough, our societies pay vast attention to the idea of ‘sexiness’; far more questionably, they tempt us to believe that it might be easy to understand what this quality consists of. The leading suggestion takes its starting point from the biological sciences: we learn that sex aims at successful reproduction and genetic fitness in the coming generation. Therefore ‘sexiness’ must logically comprise a host of semi-conscious signals of fertility and of resistance to disease: bilateral facial symmetry, large bright pupils, full lips, youthful skin and melanin-rich hair…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://bit.ly/2YX1WA2​ Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself​ You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_…​ Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/an…​ SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschoolofl…​ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschoolof…​ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Creative Seed https://creativeseed.co.za/​ Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/

Dolores (played by Lois Smith) in Ray Donovan, Season 7, says to Terry Donovan:

“Sweetheart, the man you are going to be is going to be standing on top of a mountain made of the dead versions of yourself.”

“When the sound and wholesome nature of man acts as an entirety, when he feels himself in the world as in a grand, beautiful, worthy and worthwhile whole, when this harmonious comfort affords him a pure, untrammeled delight: then the universe, if it could be sensible of itself, would shout for joy at having attained its goal and wonder at the pinnacle of its own essence and evolution. For what end is served by all the expenditure of suns and planets and moons, of stars and Milky Ways, of comets and nebula, of worlds evolving and passing away, if at last a happy man does not involuntarily rejoice in his existence?”

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (August 28, 1749 – March 22, 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist. Wikipedia

Religion and Ecological Crisis: The “Lynn White Thesis” at Fifty

by Todd Levasseur (Editor), Anna Peterson (Editor)

In 1967, Lynn White, Jr.’s seminal article The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis was published, essentially establishing the academic study of religion and nature. White argues that religions–particularly Western Christianity–are a major cause of worldwide ecological crises. He then asserts that if we are to halt, let alone revert, anthropogenic damages to the environment, we need to radically transform religious cosmologies. White’s hugely influential thesis has been cited thousands of times in a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to religious studies, environmental ethics, history, ecological science, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology.

In practical terms, the ecological crisis to which White was responding has only worsened in the decades since the article was published. This collection of original essays by leading scholars in a variety of interdisciplinary settings, including religion and nature, environmental ethics, animal studies, ecofeminism, restoration ecology, and ecotheology, considers the impact of White’s arguments, offering constructive criticism as well as reflections on the ongoing, ever-changing scholarly debate about the way religion and culture contribute to both environmental crises and to their possible solutions. Religion and Ecological Crisis addresses a wide range of topics related to White’s thesis, including its significance for environmental ethics and philosophy, the response from conservative Christians and evangelicals, its importance for Asian religious traditions, ecofeminist interpretations of the article, and which perspectives might have, ultimately, been left out of his analysis. This book is a timely reflection on the legacy and continuing challenge of White’s influential article.

(Goodreads.com)

Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology

by Gregory Bateson, Mary Catherine Bateson (Foreword by) 

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. With a new foreword by his daughter Mary Katherine Bateson, this classic anthology of his major work will continue to delight and inform generations of readers.

“This collection amounts to a retrospective exhibition of a working life. . . . Bateson has come to this position during a career that carried him not only into anthropology, for which he was first trained, but into psychiatry, genetics, and communication theory. . . . He . . . examines the nature of the mind, seeing it not as a nebulous something, somehow lodged somewhere in the body of each man, but as a network of interactions relating the individual with his society and his species and with the universe at large.”—D. W. Harding, New York Review of Books

“[Bateson’s] view of the world, of science, of culture, and of man is vast and challenging. His efforts at synthesis are tantalizingly and cryptically suggestive. . . .This is a book we should all read and ponder.”—Roger Keesing, American Anthropologist

(Goodreads.com)

djclay33 “People Get Ready” was a 1965 single by The Impressions, and the title track from the album of the same name. Please appreciate 1965!!! Such a positive songwriter. The single is today the group’s best-known hit, reaching number-three on the Billboard R&B Chart and number 14 on the Billboard Pop Chart. The gospel-influenced track was a Curtis Mayfield composition, and displayed the growing sense of social and political awareness in his writing. People get ready, there’s a train a comin’ You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’ Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord People get ready for the train to Jordan It’s picking up passengers from coast to coast Faith is the key, open the doors and board ’em There’s hope for all among those loved the most. There ain’t no room for the hopeless sinner Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner For there’s no hiding place against the Kingdom’s throne So people get ready, there’s a train a comin’ You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’ Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord

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Embracing cows, or “koe knuffelen” in Dutch, is more than a cute wellness trend. With immense mental health benefits, the practice has growing global appeal.

• By BBC Reel

9 October 2020 (bbc.com)

From goat yoga to sound baths, the world is full of wellness trends designed to soothe and calm both body and spirit. Now, a self-care practice hailing from the Netherlands is promising practitioners serenity, and perhaps a smile or two.

Dubbed “koe knuffelen” in Dutch (literally “cow hugging”), the practice is centred on the inherent healing properties of a good human-to-animal snuggle. Cow cuddlers typically start by taking a tour of the farm before resting against one of the cows for two to three hours. The cow’s warmer body temperature, slower heartbeat and mammoth size can make hugging them an incredibly soothing experience, and giving the animal a backrub, reclining against them or even getting licked is all part of the therapeutic encounter.

Cow cuddling is believed to promote positivity and reduce stress by boosting oxytocin in humans, the hormone released in social bonding. The calming effects of curling up with a pet or emotional support animal, it seems, are accentuated when cuddling with larger mammals.

This wholesome pastime emerged in rural Dutch provinces more than a decade ago, and is now part of a wider Dutch movement to bring people closer to nature and country life. Today, farms in Rotterdam, Switzerland and even the United States are offering cow-hugging sessions and promoting the activity’s joy-inducing, stress-busting properties.

The cuddling experience can even be pleasurable for the cattle themselves. A 2007 study in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science states that cows show cues of deep relaxation, stretching out and allowing their ears to fall back when massaged in particular areas of their neck and upper back.

It seems that heartfelt bonding with bovines may just be what the doctor ordered.

(Video by BBC Reel; text by Yasmin El-Beih)

Giuseppe Salerno at Catania’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). ‘What is really peculiar is that the volcano is behaving like a machine.’ Photograph: Alessio Mamo

The Guardian picture essay

In the city of Catania, at the foot of the volcano, scientists are trying to explain its recent unusual behaviour

by Lorenzo Tondo in Catania 22 Mar 2021 (theguardian.com)

When his phone rang at 3.22am last Wednesday,50-year-old Giuseppe Salerno, the head of volcanologists at Catania’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), was already up after a thundering rumble had awoken many of the city’s inhabitants. The call came from the headquarters of the INGV where, a few seconds before that disturbance, seismic waves on one of the 40 monitors in the operations room seemed to jump off the screen. For the 14th time in less than a month, Mount Etna had sent another reminder that it is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

Etna, 3,300 (10,800ft) metres above sea level, has been in explosive form in recent weeks, spewing incandescent magma and a copious shower of ash that has reached as far as Catania. Since 16 February, with fastidious precision, every 48 hours the volcano has put on a firework display with lava fountains reaching as high as 2,000 metres.

For three days the Guardian had access to the rooms of the INGV in the Piazza Roma, Catania, where day and night 100 Italian scientists monitor Etna’s movements in an attempt to explain these recent phenomena.

“The recent activity is part of a so-called lava fountaining that is among Etna’s normal activities,” says Salerno, a former PhD researcher at Cambridge University’s department of geography. “What is really peculiar is that the volcano is behaving like a machine, with rhythms that have almost a mathematical precision. This is why we’ve been monitoring its every breath, rumble and quiver in recent months.”

The information recorded by the 150 monitoring stations located over the 460 sq miles of the volcano, including heat-sensor cameras, gas emission detectors and seismographs, is sent in real time to the control room and broadcast on dozens of monitors, which give the impression of a war room in a spy movie.

“You have to imagine this control room like a hospital,” adds Salerno, “with dozens of doctors working for the same patient: Etna, who in recent weeks has been manifesting peculiar symptoms. From here we can monitor its heartbeat with the seismographs or its breathing with the gas detectors.”

The recent eruptions have provoked some distress for people living on the volcano, with ash rains that have blanketed streets, squares and buildings. In recent weeks in the town of Giarre alone more than 12,000 tonnes of ash have fallen. “It’s an extremely dramatic situation, an emergency, says Alfio Previter, a council official. Salerno said: “We’re literally buried, and if this keeps up, many towns will go bankrupt in their attempt to remove the ash, which could cost hundreds of thousands of euros.”

According to Italian law, ash collected from the streets and squares, and mixed with other forms of urban waste, is considered a special refuse, which increases the cost of its disposal. Proper disposal of a cubic metre of volcanic ash costs about €20 (£17).

However, Salerno, whose career has taken him to Kīlauea in Hawaii and the volcanoes of Central America, explains that the key to unlocking the mystery of Etna’s unusually spectacular eruptions is precisely the volcano’s ash.

In an underground laboratory of the INGV, Lucia Miraglia, 53, a geologist and volcanologist who has studied Etna’s ash under a microscope for the past 20 years, recently made a revealing discovery: “Studying the ash that’s fallen in recent days, we noticed that it reflects what volcanologists call ‘primitive magma’; that is, a magma that comes from the bowels of the mountain and carries a greater charge of gas, which is the reason why we are seeing these strikingly tall lava fountains. This sort of fresh magma has been seen before, but what’s peculiar is that the magma that Etna has been spewing since 16 February is the most primitive I’ve studied in the last 20 years.”

Etna’s magma originates from several reservoirs located miles underground. Experts at the INGV estimate that Etna’s main reservoir, and also its largest, is 12km (7.5 miles) underground. The Sicilian geophysicist Rosanna Corsaro, who studies Etna’s core from INGV headquarters, says: “The magma that’s been surfacing in these recent eruptions seems to come from about 10km underground.”

Recently, Etna has been going through a period in which there is a very efficient transfer of magma from deep beneath the surface. The south-east crater – which has been spewing lava in recent weeks – has until now been functioning as a safety valve. Other scenarios cannot be excluded, however. “Sometimes primitive magma eruptions are lateral: that is, when fractures appear on the side of the volcano and give rise to this sort of activity,” says Corsaro. “It could be that at a certain point this valve may no longer function efficiently. In that case, if the primitive magma continues to rise to the surface, a lateral opening could form.”

Such “flank eruptions” are the ones volcanologists most fear, as lava flows down the sides of the volcano, opening fractures on the low-lying mountains that risk inundating the cities below.

Forty years ago, shortly after lunch on 17 March 1981, a lateral eruption unleashed one of the most dramatic lava flows in the history of the volcano. Fortunately, it lasted only a few days, but its volume buried forests, homes, streets and railway lines, threatening to transform the small town of Randazzo into a new Pompeii. Estimates of the total volume of lava in that event are in the range of 30m cubic metres (1bn cubic ft).

But the most destructive flank eruption occurred in 1669, when lava, accompanied by earthquakes, buried dozens of towns and even reached the sea.

“At this time, the volcano’s recent activity doesn’t suggest that there will be a flank eruption,” says Stefano Branca, the director of the INGV in Catania. “It is clear, however, that Etna is no stranger to lateral eruptions. It’s not a matter of risk: lateral eruptions will happen at some point in the future.

“When?” he adds. “Well, only God knows when.”