Ways to Detoxify the Body

【Unlocking Word Meanings】

　今日の単語・フレーズ

Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article. 

1. detoxify /diˈtɒksəfaɪ/ (v.) – to remove the effects of harmful substances

Example: Detoxifying the body after drinking too much alcohol is important.       

2. feast /fist/ (v.) – to eat and drink a large amount

Example: I had a stomachache after feasting on Christmas dinner.    

3. take its toll /teɪk ɪts toʊl/ (idiom) – to cause damage or harm to something

Example: Drinking too much alcohol takes its toll on the liver. 

4. impurity /ɪmˈpyʊərɪti/ (n.) – a foreign substance that makes something unclean

Example: Water with impurities is not safe for drinking.      

5. antioxidant /ˌæntiˈɒksɪdənt, ˌæntaɪ-/ (n.) – a substance that protects cells from damage

Example: A healthy diet should include fruits and vegetables that are rich in antioxidants.

【Article】

　ニュース記事

Read the text below.

Chris Kilham, known as the Medicine Hunter, shared some ways to detoxify the body, especially after feasting during the holidays. Kilham said that one’s body can naturally detoxify itself, but having too much food or alcohol takes its toll on our liver and intestines. Kilham also shared that drinking more water can cleanse [klenz] one’s system. The human body is made up of more than 70 percent water, so drinking pure, clean water will aid the detoxification process. Other drinks that help detoxify the body include dandelion [DAN-dl-ahy-uh n] root tea as well as fruit and vegetable juices. Dandelion root tea helps remove impurities and excess fats in the liver. Fruit and vegetable juices are also recommended especially after drinking too much alcohol. Fruits are also effective in cleansing the digestive system. Apples, for example, are rich in antioxidants and pectin, two substances that help detoxify the body.  Eating one to two apples or having small amounts of vitamin C everyday can also help cleanse the body. In addition, Kilham said that having more herbs and fiber for a few weeks can help a person feel lighter. This method is advisable especially when one wants to maintain or to go back to his or her regular diet. He also suggested adding more leafy greens in the diet. While having herbs and fiber is beneficial in cleansing the body, Kilham stressed that it should not be on a regular basis. He also recommends that one should first consult a doctor before trying out any detox diet.

【Viewpoint Discussion】

　ディスカッションテーマ

Enjoy a discussion with your tutor.  

Discussion A

         After reading the article, would you be willing to try a detox diet? Why or why not?

         In your opinion, why is it important to detoxify one’s body?

Discussion B

         How can a person have a healthy diet?

         How do you think an unhealthy diet can affect a person? Please explain briefly.

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Are We Hard-wired to Believe in Immortality? Science Suggests, Yes

I came across this study four days ago, and haven't posted it because it really surprised me, and I wanted to think it through a little.  In short, this innovative research finds that our brains appear to be hardwired to believe in life before birth and after death.  Not based on evidence or religious belief, mind you.  But an intuition present in the youngest of us, children.

I like to think I'm rational, but. . .

• For years I scoffed at stories friends told of seeing ghosts, until I had two experiences with something that made me wonder what I had plainly seen and heard.
• I've always thought ESP and precognitive recognition where, well, questionable at best.  Until, I had several experiences that shook my skepticism.

These experiences haven't changed my thinking as much as opened me up to other possibilities or explanations.  To at least consider them.

After all, physicists and mathematicians tell us there is convincing evidence that there are eleven dimensions to our universe.  We can only see three and experience the fourth, time.  The others?  I can't even come close to wrapping my mind around one additional dimension, let alone seven.  

Imagine a sandbox with a pile of clean beach sand in it.  Each grain of sand in the sandbox represents one scientifically vetted fact that we as humans know. While the pile of sand in the sandbox is high, with more sand trickling atop the pile each day, we've barely made a dent in the the amount of unexplored sand on the beaches of the world. Or the sand under the oceans.  

Can we someday know all?  Or is it as British geneticist and evolutionary biologist J.B.S Haldane once said, "My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."  The older I get, the more I read and try to learn, the more I see the truth of this statement.  No matter how much we learn, we are limited by the physical capacities of our biology and the seemingly incomprehensible nature of things.  

Eleven dimensions?  How would one start to grasp this concept?

Here's the story.

*  *  *  *  *

Most people, regardless of race, religion or culture, believe they are immortal.

That is, people believe that part of themselves-some indelible core, soul or essence-will transcend the body's death and live forever. But what is this essence? Why do we believe it survives? And why is this belief so unshakable?

A new Boston University study led by postdoctoral fellow Natalie Emmons and published in the January 16, 2014 online edition of Child Development sheds light on these profound questions by examining children's ideas about "pre-life," the time before conception. By interviewing 283 children from two distinct cultures in Ecuador, Emmons's research suggests that our bias toward immortality is a part of human intuition that naturally emerges early in life. And the part of us that is eternal, we believe, is not our skills or ability to reason, but rather our hopes, desires and emotions. We are, in fact, what we feel.

Emmons' study fits into a growing body of work examining the cognitive roots of religion. Although religion is a dominant force across cultures, science has made little headway in examining whether religious belief-such as the human tendency to believe in a creator-may actually be hard-wired into our brains.

"This work shows that it's possible for science to study religious belief," said Deborah Kelemen, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Boston University and co-author of the paper. "At the same time, it helps us understand some universal aspects of human cognition and the structure of the mind."

Most studies on immortality or "eternalist" beliefs have focused on people's views of the afterlife. Studies have found that both children and adults believe that bodily needs, such as hunger and thirst, end when people die, but mental capacities, such as thinking or feeling sad, continue in some form. But these afterlife studies leave one critical question unanswered: where do these beliefs come from? Researchers have long suspected that people develop ideas about the afterlife through cultural exposure, like television or movies, or through religious instruction. But perhaps, thought Emmons, these ideas of immortality actually emerge from our intuition. Just as children learn to talk without formal instruction, maybe they also intuit that part of their mind could exist apart from their body.

Emmons tackled this question by focusing on "pre-life," the period before conception, since few cultures have beliefs or views on the subject. "By focusing on pre-life, we could see if culture causes these beliefs to appear, or if they appear spontaneously," said Emmons.

"I think it's a brilliant idea," said Paul Bloom, a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale who was not involved with the study. "One persistent belief is that children learn these ideas through school or church. That's what makes the prelife research so cool. It's a very clever way to get at children's beliefs on a topic where they aren't given answers ahead of time."

Emmons interviewed children from an indigenous Shuar village in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. She chose the group because they have no cultural pre-life beliefs, and she suspected that indigenous children, who have regular exposure to birth and death through hunting and farming, would have a more rational, biologically-based view of the time before they were conceived. For comparison, she also interviewed children from an urban area near Quito, Ecuador. Most of the urban children were Roman Catholic, a religion that teaches that life begins only at conception. If cultural influences were paramount, reasoned Emmons, both urban and indigenous children should reject the idea of life before birth.

Emmons showed the children drawings of a baby, a young woman, and the same woman while pregnant, then asked a series of questions about the child's abilities, thoughts and emotions during each period: as babies, in the womb, and before conception.

The results were surprising.
Both groups gave remarkably similar answers, despite their radically different cultures. The children reasoned that their bodies didn't exist before birth, and that they didn't have the ability to think or remember. However, both groups also said that their emotions and desires existed before they were born. For example, while children generally reported that they didn't have eyes and couldn't see things before birth, they often reported being happy that they would soon meet their mother, or sad that they were apart from their family.

"They didn't even realize they were contradicting themselves," said Emmons. "Even kids who had biological knowledge about reproduction still seemed to think that they had existed in some sort of eternal form. And that form really seemed to be about emotions and desires."

"We sometimes see connections where potentially none exist, we hope there's a master plan for the universe, we see purpose when there is none, and we imagine that a soul survives without a body."

An universal belief in the eternal existence of our emotions?
Why would humans have evolved this seemingly universal belief in the eternal existence of our emotions? Emmons said that this human trait might be a by-product of our highly developed social reasoning. "We're really good at figuring out what people are thinking, what their emotions are, what their desires are," she said. We tend to see people as the sum of their mental states, and desires and emotions may be particularly helpful when predicting their behavior. Because this ability is so useful and so powerful, it flows over into other parts of our thinking. We sometimes see connections where potentially none exist, we hope there's a master plan for the universe, we see purpose when there is none, and we imagine that a soul survives without a body.

These ideas, while nonscientific, are natural and deep-seated. "I study these things for a living but even find myself defaulting to them. I know that my mind is a product of my brain but I still like to think of myself as something independent of my body," said Emmons.

"We have the ability to reflect and reason scientifically, and we have the ability to reason based on our gut and intuition," she added. "And depending on the situation, one may be more useful than the other."

*  *  *  *  *

Story Source: Materials provided by Boston University,  written by Barbara Moran.

Journal Reference:  Natalie A. Emmons, Deborah Kelemen. The Development of Children's Prelife Reasoning: Evidence From Two Cultures. Child Development, 2014

Good Social Relationship Leads to Good Sleep, Study Reveals

【Unlocking Word Meanings】

　今日の単語・フレーズ

Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article. 

1. get into /gɛt ˈɪntu/ (v. phrase) – to get involved in something

Example: Parents never want their children to get into trouble.

2.  keep an eye on /kip ən aɪ ɒn/ (idiom) – to watch or monitor closely

Example: Parents must keep an eye on their children to protect them from bad influences.

3. adequate /ˈædɪkwɪt/ (adj.) – enough to meet a requirement or a need

Example: I feel so sleepy because I did not get adequate sleep last night.

4. positive /ˈpɒzɪtɪv/ (adj.) – has good behavior; good-natured

Example: Positive people can influence others to become well-mannered.

5. look into /lʊk ˈɪntu/ (v. phrase) – to study or investigate something carefully

Example: The research looks into the effects of good sleep on children’s behavior.

【Article】

　ニュース記事

Read the text below.

A recent study revealed that adolescents with good social relationship often get regular and good sleep. David Maume, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, conducted the said study. He analyzed the social ties and sleep patterns of almost one thousand teenagers from when they were 12 to 15 years old. Results of the study showed that when the adolescents turned 15, their amount of sleep decreased from more than nine hours to less than eight. The study also found that the adolescents’ healthy habits are greatly affected by their parent’s involvement in their lives. Parents often prevent their teenage children from getting into drugs and alcohol by monitoring their kids’ actions. Similarly, teenagers develop healthy sleeping habits when parents keep an eye on their children’s behavior, the study further revealed. When teenagers have healthy sleeping habits, they gain adequate rest that leads to a healthier lifestyle. Furthermore, teenagers who have positive friends are also more likely to get better sleep. With well-mannered friends, teenagers tend to behave well and have better health, which helps them get enough sleep. Maume noted that when teenagers have sleeping problems, doctors simply recommend prescription drugs to deal with the problem. However, according to Maume, this problem may not be solved with drugs alone. It is also important to look into parent-child relationship. The parents’ greater involvement in their children’s lives may be more responsible for having better sleep than doctor-prescribed medical solutions.

【Viewpoint Discussion】

　ディスカッションテーマ

Enjoy a discussion with your tutor.  

Discussion A

         Do you agree that teenagers can have better sleep if parents monitor their children’s behavior? Explain.

         How else can we help teenagers get better and enough sleep?

Discussion B

         What do you think are the advantages of having adequate sleep? Please discuss briefly.

         Why do you think some people often get inadequate sleep?

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First Feature Film in Saudi Arabia Gets Oscars Nomination

【Unlocking Word Meanings】

　今日の単語・フレーズ

Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article. 

1. taboo /təˈbu, tæ-/ (adj.) – unacceptable in a society; cannot be used or talked about

Example: In some traditional cultures, modern practices are often considered taboo.

2. patriarchal /ˌpeɪtriˈɑrkəl/ (adj.) – dominated or ruled by men

Example: Women are often discriminated in patriarchal societies. 

3. move /muv/ (v.) – to touch a person’s emotions

Example: The story about a young boy’s struggle for his dreams moved the lady into tears.

4. plight /plaɪt/ (n.) – a sad or unfortunate condition

Example: I feel sorry for the plight of women in strict patriarchal societies.

5. disguise /dɪsˈgaɪz, dɪˈskaɪz/ (v.) – to change one’s appearance to avoid being recognized

Example: The girls disguised themselves as boys so they can join the team exclusive only for boys.

【Article】

　ニュース記事

Read the text below.

Wadjda [WAJ-da], the very first film that was shot in Saudi Arabia, became the kingdom’s first film to be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. The movie centers on a girl’s dream to ride a bike, which is taboo in Saudi Arabia. In the country, only boys are socially accepted to ride a bike. The film also revolves around the girl’s relationship with her mom as they both find their place in Saudi’s patriarchal society. Director Al Mansour fell in love with film during her childhood. She has since wanted to make films with characters that would move people and themes that would reach an audience. In her first film, Al Mansour wanted to portray the life of women in Saudi Arabia. To do this, she studied some films from countries where women have the same plight as the women in Saudi Arabia. One of these films is Iran’s Offside, which tells the story of Iranian girls who disguised themselves as boys just to be able to watch a World Cup qualifying match. Al Mansour was also inspired by Italian films that were made after World War II. These films motivated her to make movies that document the interesting reality that she was living in. The reality Al Mansour mentioned is how women in Saudi Arabia are deprived of many things that the women in other countries enjoy. Some are as simple as riding a bike, but some are as complicated as travelling abroad and choosing a husband.

【Viewpoint Discussion】

　ディスカッションテーマ

Enjoy a discussion with your tutor.  

Discussion A

         Would you be interested to watch this film? Why or why not?

         Why do you think some directors focus their films on social issues like gender discrimination?

Discussion B

         How do you think discrimination of women can be avoided?

         How can women be empowered?

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Nightmares Create Feelings of Sadness, Confusion, Guilt, and Disgust ~ Not Fear

According to a new study by researchers at the University of Montreal, nightmares have greater emotional impact than bad dreams do, and fear is not always a factor. In fact, it is mostly absent in bad dreams and in a third of nightmares. What is felt, instead, is sadness, confusion, guilt, disgust, etc. For their analysis of 253 nightmares and 431 bad dreams, researchers obtained the narratives of nearly 10,000 dreams.

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"Physical aggression is the most frequently reported theme in nightmares. Moreover, nightmares become so intense they will wake you up. Bad dreams, on the other hand, are especially haunted by interpersonal conflicts," write Geneviève Robert and Antonio Zadra, psychology researchers at the Université de Montréal, in the last issue of Sleep.

"Death, health concerns and threats are common themes in nightmares," says Geneviève Robert, first author of the article, which formed part of her doctoral thesis. "But it would be wrong to think that they characterize all nightmares. "Sometimes, it is the feeling of a threat or a ominous atmosphere that causes the person to awaken. I'm thinking of one narrative, in which the person saw an owl on a branch and was absolutely terrified."

Nightmares in men were also more likely than those of women to contain themes of disasters and calamities such as floods, earthquakes and war while themes involving interpersonal conflicts were twice as frequent in the nightmares of women.

Why do we dream? What are nightmares?
These questions are still unanswered, says Professor Zadra, who has focused on sleep disorders for 20 years (he is notably a specialist in sleepwalking). One hypothesis is that dreams are a catharsis to the vicissitudes of daily life; another is that they reflect a disruption of the nervous system. Whatever they are, the scientific community generally agrees that everyone dreams, usually during the stage of sleep called REM sleep, which most people go through three to five times a night. Most sleepers forget their dreams right away; heavy dreamers remember them more easily. Five to six percent of the population report having nightmares.

Treatable 
"Nightmares are not a disease in themselves but can be a problem for the individual who anticipates them or who is greatly distressed by their nightmares. People who have frequent nightmares may fear falling asleep -- and being plunged into their worst dreams. Some nightmares are repeated every night. People who are awakened by their nightmares cannot get back to sleep, which creates artificial insomnia," says Zadra.

The source of a recurring nightmare may be a traumatic event. Returning soldiers sometimes, in their dreams, see the scenes that marked them. Consumption or withdrawal of alcohol or psychotropic drugs may also explain the frequency or intensity of nightmares. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies nightmares in the category "parasomnias usually associated with REM sleep."

The good news is that nightmares are treatable. Through visualization techniques, patients learn to change the scenario of one or more of their dreams and repeat the new scenario using a mental imagery technique. It can be through a life-saving act (the dreamer confronts the attacker) or a supernatural intervention (Superman comes to the rescue). All in mid-dream!

The dream files 
One of the research aims of Robert and Zadra, who were funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, was to better understand the difference between bad dreams and nightmares, which seem to be in a continuum with "ordinary" dreams, along a sort of intensity scale.

For this first large-scale comparative study on the topic, the researchers asked 572 respondents to write a dream journal over two to five weeks instead of simply ticking off themes listed in a questionnaire, which is a quicker but less valid method. Some of these journals, stored in a large "dream repository" at the UdeM Department of Psychology, are quite rich.

One example: "I'm in a closet. A strip of white cloth is forcing me to crouch. Instead of clothes hanging, there are large and grotesquely shaped stuffed animals like cats and dogs with grimacing teeth and bulging eyes. They're hanging and wiggling towards me. I feel trapped and frightened."

Not all the narratives are as detailed, says Geneviève Robert, taking several folders from the filing cabinet. While some narratives are written on more than one page (the average is 144 words), some are briefer: one or two lines. Since the participants were asked to write their descriptions as soon as possible after awakening, some of the writing is almost stream-of-consciousness. One can only imagine the work of the research team who transcribed these thousands of narratives before classifying and analyzing them.

What more can we understand from dreams? "Almost everything," says Zadra. Through this research, we can better assert that dreams, bad dreams, and nightmares are part of the same emotional and neurocognitive process. How and which one? It remains to be determined.

*  *  *  *  *

Story Source:  Geneviève Robert and Antonio Zadra. Thematic and Content Analysis of Idiopathic Nightmares and Bad Dreams. Sleep, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2014

How Our Stone Age Ancestors Lived & Hid

Cueva de El Mirón in the Rio Asón valley of eastern Cantabria, Spain. The cave opening is about 260 metres above sea level.

No, I'm not obsessing about our human ancestors.  Reading the scientific press I've notice that stories seem to run in cycles, and for the last few days most of the research reports that a writer might find interesting have been about our most ancient ancestors.

To see or to be seen?

This is the question that humans inhabiting the Cantabrian coast of Spain during the Palaeolithic era had to ask themselves.

Suggested Reading
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"We discovered that the nomad hunters and gatherers that inhabited these lands between 17,000 and 10,700 years ago swapped caves and refuges in the middle of hillsides or at high altitude for others in the depths of valleys and at the bottom of hills," explains Alejandro García Moreno from the University of Cantabria, the main author of the study.

The oldest sites tend to be located on conical mountains, such as El Castillo in Cantabria and Santimamiñe in Biscay. They stand out in the scenery; in other words, not only do they offer a good vantage point, but they are also highly visible themselves.

Over the course of the Palaeolithic new sites spring up, many of them in previously uninhabited caves and places of lower altitude. "From these caves they could not see as far, but the view would have covered a wider horizon," the scientist expands.

In total, the researchers studied 25 archaeological sites from the end of the Upper Palaeolithic - the periods known as the Magdalenian and the Azilian - and used a geographic information system (GIS) which combines space data, such as maps and digital models of the land, with alphanumeric information.

Cultural, social and ideological changes

Over this historical period, the climate changed and significant social transformations occurred. It was the end of the last glacial period, and new tools appeared, such as harpoons. There were also social, cultural and ideological changes, such as the disappearance of cave art.

The interpretation given by the authors of the recent article is that the preferences when deciding on a habitat could be based on two parallel reasons which are not mutually exclusive.

First, hunting large herds of animals - mainly doe - became less widespread.. "Human beings were beginning to adopt a more varied diet, therefore it was not as important to guard their territory and keep watch for packs of animals; rather, they needed more direct access to a variety of resources nearby," highlights García-Moreno.

The other explanation is a social one: it appears that at the end of the Palaeolithic period, human communities broke up and began to travel shorter and shorter distances in their nomadic movements; old contacts at great distances weakened.

"These issues of social organisation are difficult to tackle, as they do not tend to leave obvious material evidence behind. It is possible that the large sites that were very visible in obvious areas of the landscape began to lose their function as symbolic locations where different groups would meet, and because of this they chose other, smaller areas, of the kind we might call logistic, more practical," the scientist concludes.

*  *  *  *  *

Story Source: Alejandro Garcia-Moreno. To see or to be seen… is that the question? An evaluation of palaeolithic sites’ visual presence and their role in social organization. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2013

Dennis Rodman Visits North Korea for the Third Time

【Unlocking Word Meanings】

　今日の単語・フレーズ

Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article. 

1. legend /ˈlɛdʒənd/ (n.) – a person who is one of the greatest in a specific field

Example: Basketball legend Michael Jordan is admired by many people.

2. unlikely /ʌnˈlaɪkli/ (adj.) – rare or not possible to happen

Example: A careful leader is unlikely to fail.

3. label /ˈleɪbəl/ (v.) – to give another name to something

Example: The coach labeled Ken as the team’s “tower” because of his height.

4. execution /ˌɛksɪˈkyuʃən/ (n.) – the act of punishing someone with death

Example: The commander ordered the execution of the captured terrorists.

5. insist /ɪnˈsɪst/ (v.) – to keep saying something forcefully

Example: Charles keeps insisting that his team should have won the game.

【Article】

　ニュース記事

Read the text below.

Basketball legend Dennis Rodman recently visited North Korea for the third time. Rodman stayed in North Korea for four days to help train the country’s national basketball players. Also, he helped in preparing a friendly game between the North Koreans and his team composed of other former NBA players. The event was scheduled on the birthday of Kim Jong-Un, North Korea’s supreme leader. In February 2013, Rodman had his first trip to the country for a basketball exhibition game. He developed an unlikely friendship with the leader, who is a big fan of basketball. He even labeled Kim Jong-Un as a lifetime friend. Despite the country’s human rights violations, Rodman describes the leader as a very good guy. They talked and ate together for the first two meetings. However, Rodman and Kim were not able to meet during the athlete’s third visit. A week before Rodman’s third visit, North Korea announced the execution of Kim’s own uncle for reasons of planned rebellion. Kim’s uncle was considered as North Korea’s second leader. Rodman said the lack of meeting with the leader during his third stay in North Korea did not worry him. The visit was just about the training and preparation for the game. In the first week of January, he again returned to the country to personally greet Kim Jong-Un on his birthday. The international community criticized Rodman’s series of trips in North Korea, which began during the nation’s nuclear missile tests. However, Rodman refused to comment on the political issues involving the nation and insisted that his visit is only about basketball and about having fun.

【Viewpoint Discussion】

　ディスカッションテーマ

Enjoy a discussion with your tutor.  

Discussion A

         Do you approve of Kim Jong-Un and Dennis Rodman’s friendship? Why or why not?

         Why do you think the international community criticizes Rodman’s visit to North Korea?

Discussion B

         Why is it important to protect one’s human rights?

         In your opinion, how can the violation of human rights be prevented?

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