Do our dreams give us messages from our bodies about health problems we may not be aware of? The ancient Greeks thought that dreams contained information that could be used to diagnose disease. With some diseases, specific dreams are more likely to occur; however, people who have the most severe cases of these diseases often say they don’t dream at all.
read more
Scientists now know that our sexuality is hard-wired into our genes. But psychologists and clergy have long tried to “cure” gay people of their “orientation,” sometimes through aversion therapy of the kind seen in the movie “A Clockwork Orange.” In the U.K., this was even paid for by the National Health Services. What were the results?
Brian Wheeler writes in bbcnews.com that, according to psychiatrist Michael Knight, there were many “biological treatments for homosexuality,” until recently. In the 1920s, German medical researchers implanted testicles from corpses into the bodies of homosexual men, in order to increase testosterone levels. Knight says, “They were told they were going to have an operation, but not what was going to be done to them.”
read more
Most scientists now believe that, due to the fossil evidence, birds are an evolutionary offspring of dinosaurs. Now they’ve discovered that 175 to 275 million years ago, when this evolution began to take place, oxygen fell to dangerously low levels on Earth. This may have led to the major extinction event which eliminated 90% of all the species. It would have made breathing the air at sea level the same as breathing at high altitudes today and could have led to the development of the unusual breathing system found in some dinosaurs, including the brontosaurus, which still exists in today’s birds.
read more
We recently wrote about how global warming will change California. Now a new report says that there will be major changes in Washington state as well. “The time for plain speaking is long overdue,” says climatologist Edward Miles. “We have never faced a problem like this.”
Lisa Stiffler and Robert McClure write in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the area’s major problems in the future will be include a shortened ski season, sinking cities, California-style wildfires and mahi-mahi, instead of salmon.
read more