Zen Meditaton Reduces Physical Pain, literally.

an excerpt from Science Daily

Slower breathing certainly coincided with reduced pain and may influence pain by keeping the body in a relaxed state." says Grant. "While previous studies have found that the emotional aspects of pain are influenced by meditation, we found that the sensation itself, as well as the emotional response, is different in meditators."

The ultimate result? Zen meditators experienced an 18 percent reduction in pain intensity. "If meditation can change the way someone feels pain, thereby reducing the amount of pain medication required for an ailment, that would be clearly beneficial," says Grant.

This light...

Clear morning skies, blue-white snow covering everything, the branches black, the light flashing orange and yellow in the tree tops and then off the ground...I took advantage of the two hour delay by standing outside for a half hour watching my pigeons, tracking the sunrise, and planning how I am going to prune the big mulberry tree. Sipping tea. Perfect.

WINTER! AGAIN!

Two hour delay today.
Drive Safely.

Welcome to Tiwes Dag

And for your reading pleasure, a possible answer to why our mouths are shaped as they are...could it be that speech co-evolved out of an ability to eat nuts?

Our earliest ancestors might have been crackers - specialised crackers of tough nuts and seeds, that is. Australopithecines boasted mouths ideal for accessing such well-protected food, suggests a new calculation of the ancient, upright hominin's bite.

Australopithecus possessed jaws and teeth larger and more powerful than those of its ape ancestors, says David Strait, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Albany in New York, who led the study. "It's been thought that these unique facial features are adaptations for chewing or feeding."

Some researchers see the australopithecine mouth as sculpted for munching small, hard objects such as seeds. While others have argued that their bigger mouths merely allowed them to eat more food with each bite. However, the new results cast doubt on both explanations.

Rather than analyse microscopic cracks in tooth enamel or the chemical composition of bone, as others had done, Strait's team took an approach more common to mechanical engineering...

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