Synapse

Unpack your bags, it’s not a wormhole. It’s a Russian Navy missile test gone awry. Check out Jay’s interview with Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell in a recent Daily Planet.

Came across this story a few days ago and it made me think of what Stewart Brand’s been saying for a while now…. “given access to the information we need - humanity can make the world a better place.” In “Whole Earth Discipline” he also makes a counterintuitive case for why booming slums and squatter cities around Mumbai, Nairobi, and Rio de Janeiro breed innovation a la below.

Using scraps from a local junkyard in Malawi, William Kamkwamba created something that harnessed the wind - and changed his life.

I am so impressed with the folk at the National Film Board (of Canada). They just keep pumping out top-notch content. First their amazing free iPhone / iPod Touch app (that allows you to screen entire films), and now WaterLife.

Their latest initiative is an interactive site centred on the idea that our Great Lakes (and waterways in general) are changing - not for the better. The idea of water as a limited resource, is of course, nothing new. Potable water all the more so. Here in Canada we don’t think about it much, because we’re under the impression there’s plenty of it. Wrong. We just happen to have more of it than most other nations, but by no means enough to be dismissive in its use. Just talk to an Aussie. They think us blazingly wasteful. A couple of years ago, I co-produced a segment for DiscoveryChannel.ca that highlighted this difference.

I spent the first decade of my life by a major river, and my summers by the sea. I’m fortunate enough to live in a place that’s surrounded not only by the Great Lakes, but numerous smaller ones. Whenever near water, I’m keenly attuned to its rhythms. It transforms me. It teems with life. In fact, there’s likely more life underwater on Earth than on land. And if you think about it, Planet Earth is kind of a misnomer.  All the more reason our very existence depends on the health of our water systems. This is perhaps why I feel so passionately that amidst all the “Green” initiatives, we don’t leave out the Blue. They are one and the same.

If you’re curious to find out more, CBC’s The Current ran a great radio series last year called “Watershed”. I also recommend reading Alana Mitchell’s “Sea Sick”.

WaterLife was brought to my attention by ad girl Lava Nosenkis.

Poetic. And sweet. Who could have predicted 10 years ago that we’d be telling stories via searches…

For more in this brilliant series, head here.

The remainder of the list is here.

Shot on the camera I’ve yet to play with, a sport I’ve yet to try:

Making of BAGUS MOVIE - Indonesia from Ne3ko on Vimeo.

One of the neat things I came across while traversing the web this aft…This was shot on the increasingly popular Red One. The shots are stunning. Kitesurfing goes on my must-try list…

This is Nat Geo’s latest promo and I must say, it’s a very good one. I had to pause and think about the sequence of Ifs, but all in all, definitely moving. My kudos to the creative masterminds.

This Chinese farmer is a robotics enthusiast in his spare time…He uses spare parts and leftovers…

So two stories I came across recently made me think about the brain’s ability to cope under extreme stress.

The first is the story of the recently-freed Iranian-Canadian Journalist, Maziar Bahari, who was held captive for 118 days following election protests in Iran.

He was arrested and held under suspicion of being a spy. During this period, Bahari was tortured by his captors – one in particular, who threatened his life daily. What interests me most is what Bahari did to get by during this time. While on more than one occasion he contemplated taking his life, he argued with himself – in other words, engaged in self-talk - on why he shouldn’t. Reason one: “Don’t be stupid. Don’t do their job for them.” Makes sense.

When he felt that the walls of his tiny cell were closing in (literally), Bahari even went as far to create an alternate universe in his mind (to disassociate from the present one). As one example, when his skin was burning, Bahari apparently mentally transported himself to a beach in South Africa, where he previously acquired severe sunburn. This alternate universe “was guarded by Mr. Leonard Cohen.”

What’s more, “it was just ridiculous to me that this old Jewish [man], and one of the most cynical poet songwriters in the world, managed to save me in the heart of the Islamic Republic,” he told the BBC. Clearly, the man had enough presence of mind under these extreme circumstances to call out irony when he saw it. If there’s a way to be a captive, I’d say that’s it.

The other story (it came out on the same day), involved a different kind of harrowing experience, but also one that deals with confinement, and in the most extreme sense. It involves a man who was thought to be comatose…for 23 years…and falsely so. It turns out Rob Houben was not in a vegetative state, but paralyzed and conscious throughout the entire ordeal. I mean, this is the kind of stuff nightmares are made of: “I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” Daily Mail quoted Houben as saying (though now there’s debate whether or not he actually said those words).

In 2006, a scan revealed that the man’s brain was functioning almost entirely. (As a side note, and perhaps even more shockingly, the man who detailed the case says that about 40 per cent of such patients go misdiagnosed). As in the first story, Houben also created an alternate universe; he “dreamt the time away” as the years passed. “All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.”

Arguably, a person’s ability to endure such extremely stressful situations comes down to the extent and severity of the situations (and obviously their duration). Coping strategies too play a role. But so does biology.

Studies suggest that an individual’s capacity to be resilient under conditions of extreme stress, such as those regularly experienced by soldiers, police, and firefighters, also involve hormones.

Dehydroepiandrosterone, or “DHEA”, to be exact. This is a hormone that is secreted by the adrenal gland (above your pancreas) in response to stress. Although scientists have known for over a decade that DHEA provides beneficial, anti-stress effects in animals, they did not know until recently whether this was also true for humans.

A recent study that looked at soldiers’ ability to tolerate stress found indication that compounds like DHEA might be used in the future to protect military personnel from the negative impact of operational stress.

How would say a DHEA pill impact on interrogators and the interrogated? (I mean, the very point of an interrogation the way I understand it is to stress the individual out to the point that it illicit a perceived confession.) Would it just raise the stakes? Would it be beneficial for individuals who knowingly go into high-risk and high-stress situations (i.e. war correspondents, police officers, etc.)? Could it be administered post trauma to lessen its effects? Not sure about any of these, but these are just some of the questions I’m left asking. And I hope insight comes by way of public discourse.