Usapang Bayan February 28 2025, 2-3 pm, Friday: Fight inflation, be practical! 50 Tips for Practical Living, and Home Biotechnology

                                    Usapang Bayan February 28 2025, 2-3 pm, Friday

Fight inflation, be practical!

50 Tips for Practical Living,

and Home Biotechnology

This is a continuing list of practical household management tips, which can be easily followed, and shared with the members of your family, friends, in the school and community. Learn and perfect each tip through demonstration. Illustrate or photograph each tip. Compile these tips into a handy manual. 

 

Ten (10) pillars of Practical Living as a way of life and philosophy.

1. Save, save, save 
2. Live simply 
3. Attain self-sufficiency 
4. Learn science and develop your skills 
5. Share with your community 
6. Keep your surroundings clean 
7. Systematize and organize 
8. Believe in serendipity and providence 
9. Sacrifice want in favor of need 
10. Set goal for the succeeding generations 

          

    

Part 1 - 50 Tips for Practical Living

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. When dust gets in your eyes, blow your nose.
2. When an ant has entered into your ear, close the other ear and it will come out by its own. 

3.  Press the base of the nail of the large toe to wake an unconscious person.

4. Gulat ang gamut sa sinok. To stop hiccup, jolt the person.

5. Press the base of the jaw joint to relieve toothache.

6. Sterilize handkerchief with hot iron in the absence of cotton gauze and bandage.

In an emergency case, or for simple treatment, this is what you can do. Get a clean handkerchief and iron it repeatedly at high temperature for a duration of five minutes to seven minutes. To save on energy, you may prepare two or three handkerchiefs for the purpose. 

7. Lighted candles drive flies away.

8. If the father or mother leaves the house, place the clothes he or she last worn beside the sleeping child so that he goes into deep sleep. This is pheromones in action. Pheromones are chemical signals for bonding in the animal world, and among humans. 

Like the queen bee that keeps its colony intact through pheromones, so we are attracted by a similar odor, although of a less specific one. People are compatible through smell. Pheromones are left in clothes and other belongings, so that a baby may remain fast asleep as if he were in his mother’s or father’s arms.

9. Prevent drinking glass from breaking, by first putting metal spoon before pouring the hot liquid.

10. Chopped banana stalk makes a cold pack to reduce fever.

11. Rub table salt on the cut stem of newly harvested fruits to hasten their ripening.

12. Incense (resin) rids chicken of lice. It also calms them down.

13. You feel you can’t hold it any longer. You are about to sneeze and you are in a conference. Press the base of your nose; hold it there until urge subsides.  Find excuse to leave the room, then explode.

14. Cut your finger and it’s bleeding? Raise hand above heart level while attending to it. Keep this position steady until bleeding stops. Immediately seek medical treatment for serious cases.

15. To keep coffee hot longer, first pour hot water to preheat the cup. Empty the cup and pour in the real coffee. Enjoy.

16. If you are using glass for coffee, place a spoon first before pouring in the coffee. The metal absorbs sudden and excess heat that may cause the glass to crack.

17. Be sure oil is hot enough before putting into the pan the thing to wish to fry, say meat or fish. A drop of water will readily splatter when introduced into the pan. Be careful.

18. Get rid of ants in the kitchen. Wipe table, floor, and other surfaces with diluted natural vinegar. Vinegar freshens the smell of the kitchen as well.

19. To know if the honey you are buying is genuine or not, place it in the ref. Real honey does not solidify and has no residue. Fake honey does. Sugar in adulterated honey settles as thick residue.

19. Serve lemonade without tasting and know its sweetness is just right. Stir with calculated sugar. When seeds float, it’s too sweet. If they settle down you need more sugar.

20. To make potato fries crispy on the outside and soft inside, immerse in ice water for a minute or two. Proceed with usual deep frying. Do the same with kamote or sweet potato, gabi (taro), and ubi and sinkamas (yam)

21. Wood ash from firewood and charcoal for cleaning. Removes slime when scaling fish, cleans metals and utensils, and eases disposal of pet droppings. Gather ash after cooking and store in a convenient container. Dispose ash after use as fertilizer; ash is rich in potassium, a major plant nutrient.

22. Keep salt in glass container snugly closed every after use. It is hygroscopic, that is, it absorbs humidity causing it to become soggy. Coffee cakes when exposed, so with sugar. Spices lose their essence.

23. Hang in dry and cool place garlic and shallot onion in bundles to prolong shelf life. In the province. the bundles are hanged above the stove. Smoke is a natural protectant against pests and rot.

24. To hasten the ripening of fruits like chico, mango, guyabano, atis and caimito, rub a little salt at the base of the peduncle (fruit stem). For nangka, drive a stake of bamboo or wood 2 to 3 inches long through the base of the stem. As a rule pick only fully mature fruits.

25. Collective ripening of various fruits is hastened with the inclusion of banana in the plastic pack or container. Explanation: the trapped ethylene gas emitted by banana catalyzes ripening.

 

 26. Pry open, instead of pounding with stone or hammer, using the tip of an ordinary knife. Find the hinge behind the shell. This is its Achilles heel. Insert and twist. Simply open,   Eat straight with gusto. (Internet photos)

27. Bagoong smells, so with patis. But the best recipes can't be without. Here's what to do. Heat desired amount of water with bagoong to boiling, don't stir. Get rid of the froth. Now you can proceed with the usual cooking of bulanglang, pinakbet, and the like. Walang amoy bagoong o patis. (No trace of the raw smell) 

28. Don't dispose used cooking oil in sink. It reacts with detergent and solidifies like soap - the same process called saponification, blocking drainage canal and sewer. 

29. Cut spent toothpaste tube and glean on remaining content. You can have as much as five brushings. Use remaining paste as hand-wash to remove grease and fishy odor.

30. Make your own hand wash detergent. Scrape soap with knife, dissolve in water. Presto! You can have all the hand wash you need. Use your formula to refill empty dispensers. Label with the soap you used and the dilution you made. Avoid commercial concentrated brands - they are too strong, and dangerous to children. 

 

Protect tip of pencil with rolled paper. This serves as cap to extend the life of the pencil, and prevent accident. - avr

31. Protect tip of pencil with rolled paper. This serves as cap to extend the life of the pencil, and prevent accident. Use gloss, colored paper - the kind used as promo leaflets. Instead of refusing, or throwing it away, you can make a beautiful pencil cap. You can also roll it as extender when the pencil becomes too short, thus maximizing its use. 

32. Garden pots from PET bottles (1- to 2-li). It’s free, whereas commercial garden pots are expensive. Cut at midsection with a sharp knife or blade; puncture three equidistant holes on the side, an inch from the base, not at the bottom. This is to keep reserve water for the plant. Plant one kind per pot: oregano, alugbati, kamote, kangkong, ginger, onion, garlic, mustard, pechay, and the like. Scrape some topsoil for your planting medium. There’s no need of fertilizer and pesticide. Keep a pot or two of growing garlic or onion, also ginger; they are insect repellants.

33. How do you count seconds and minutes without a timepiece?

When counting seconds, it is more precise to count, “one-hundred-one, one-hundred-two, one-hundred-three, and so on.” This traditional technique is used today in photography (light exposure, shutter speed), games (swimming and track race), and during emergency (CPR, measuring body temperature, pulse rate). It may be useful in our daily routine (cooking, exercise). 

34. Double the circumference of your neck and that is your waistline.

In the absence of a tape measure, and without fitting it, how do you know the waistline of your pants? Mothers have a simple formula. Button the pants and wrap it around the neck of the would-be user. Both ends should meet, not too tight or loose.

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35. Rice weevil, PHOTO by avr, can be controlled by placing crushed bulb of garlic in the stored rice. Loosely wrap garlic with cloth or paper. Cover the box. In a day or two, the weevils succumb to the garlic odor. Others simply escape. 

36. Sugar solution extends the life of cut flowers. Pulsing for roses is done by immersing the stem ends for one to three hours in 10% sugar solution, and for gladiolus 12 to 24 hours in 20% sugar solution. Daisies, carnation, chrysanthemums, and the like are better handled if harvested and transported in their immature stage, then opened by pulsing. It is best to cut the stem at an angle, dipped 6 to 12 hours in 10% sugar solution.  Best results are obtained at cool temperature and low relative humidity.

37. Insert balled newspaper (better brown paper to get rid of possible lead content from ink and paint) into shoes to remove odor, absorb moisture, keep shoes in shape.

38. Orange peeling kept in sugar jar prevents sugar from caking and discoloring into dark clumps.

39. Banana leaves as floor polisher. Mature leaves of saba variety (other varieties will do) is first wilted on flame to melt the natural wax. It also imparts a pleasant smell.

40. Don't throw away coconut husk. Make it into flower pot for orchids and ferns. Shred to make scrub for floor and utensils. Cut whole mature nut crosswise, trim off protruding shell. Now you have a foot floor polisher. Happy exercise.

41. Add talc powder (baby powder) to hardware nails to prevent rusting. Be sure to keep the container tight. Notice in some restaurants, rice is mixed with salt in the dispenser. Rice absorbs moisture preventing the salt from clumping and soggy.

42. Stuck bubble gum in clothes? Don't force to remove. Put soiled clothes in the freezer. Once solidified, peel off the gum clean and easy.

43. Ethnic music makes a wholesome life; it is therapy.

Have you ever noticed village folks singing or humming as they attend to their chores? They have songs when rowing the boat, songs when planting, songs of praise at sunrise, songs while walking up and down the trail, etc. Seldom is there an activity without music. Even the sounds of nature to them are music.

According to researcher Leonora Nacorda Collantes, of the UST graduate school, music influences the limbic system, called the “seat of emotions” and causes emotional response and mood change. Musical rhythms synchronize body rhythms, mediate within the sphere of the autonomous nervous and endocrine systems, and change the heart and respiratory rate.  Music reduces anxiety and pain, induces relaxation, thus promoting the overall sense of well being of the individual.

Music is closely associated with everyday life among village folks more than it is to us living in the city. The natives find content and relaxation beside a waterfall, on the riverbank, under the trees, in fact there is to them music in silence under the stars, on the meadow, at sunset, at dawn. Breeze, crickets, running water, make a repetitious melody that induces sleep. Humming indicates that one likes his or her work., and can go on for hours without getting tired at it. Boat songs make rowing synchronized. Planting songs make the deities of the field happy, so they believe; and songs at harvest is thanksgiving. The natives are indeed a happy lot.

44. When earthworms crawl out of their holes, a flood is coming.  This subterranean annelid has built-in sensors, a biblical Noah’s sense of a coming flood, so to speak. Its small brain is connected to clusters of nerve cells, called ganglia, running down the whole body length. These in turn are connected to numerous hair-like protrusions on the cuticle, which serve as receptor. When rain saturates the soil, ground water rises and before it reaches their burrows, they crawl out to higher grounds where they seek refuge until the flood or the rainy season is over. 

The more earthworms abandoning their burrows, the more we should take precaution.

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Recycle writing materials:

      a. Notebooks with unused pages.

      b. Other side of used bond papers.

      c. Replace spent ballpens with new fillers. Take with you samples.

      d. Small notes and reminder slips, save blank spaces of used papers.

      e. Papers which can't be recycled for writing can be used for wrapping 

          and similar purposes. Avoid waste.

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45. To control rhinoceros beetles from destroying coconuts throw some sand into the base of the leaves. 

This insect, Oryctes rhinoceros, is a scourge of coconut, the larva and adult burrow into the bud and destroy the whole top or crown of the tree. There is scientific explanation to this practice of throwing sand into the axis of the leaves. Sand, the raw material in making glass, penetrates into the conjunctiva - the soft skin adjoining the hard body plates, in effect injuring the insect. As the insect moves, the more it gets hurt. As a result the insect dies from wound infection, or by dehydration. Thus we observe that coconut trees growing along the seashore are seldom attacked by this beetle.

46. Don’t play with toads. Toads cause warts.

Old folks may be referring to the Bufo marinus, a poisonous toad that secretes white pasty poison from a pair of glands behind its eyes. Even snakes have learned to avoid this creature described as ugly in children’s fairy tales.

But what do we know! The toad’s defensive fluids have antibiotic properties. Chinese folk healers treat wounds such as sores and dog bites with toad secretions, sometimes obtained by surrounding the toads with mirrors to scare them in order to secrete more fluids.

Aestivating toad 

Similarly certain frogs secrete antibiotic substances. A certain Dr. Michael Zasloff, physician and biochemist, discovered an antibiotic from the skin of frogs he called magainins, derived from the Hebrew word for shield, a previously unknown antibiotic. It all started when researchers performed surgery on frogs and after returning them to murky bacteria-filled water, found out that the frogs almost never got any infection.

What are then the warts the old folks claim? They must be scars of ugly wounds healed by the toad’s secretion.

47. Animals become uneasy before an earthquake occurs. 

It is because they are sensitive to the vibrations preceding an earthquake. They perceive the small numerous crackling of the earth before the final break (tectonic), which is the earthquake. 

Fantail or pandangera bird is usually restless at the onset of bad weather.

As a means of self-preservation they try to escape from stables and pens, seek shelter, run to higher grounds, or simply escape to areas far from the impending earthquake. Snakes come out of their abode, reptiles move away from the water, horses neigh and kick around, elephants seem to defy the command of their masters (like in the case of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka). We humans can only detect such minute movements on our inventions such as the Richter Scale.

48. Don’t gather all the eggs. Leave some otherwise the laying hen will not return to its nest. 

True. The layer is likely to abandon its nest when it finds it empty. Leave a decoy of say, three eggs. But there are layers that know simple arithmetic, and therefore, cannot be deceived, and so they abandon their nest and find a new one.

49. Raining while the sun is out breeds insects.

Now and then we experience simultaneous rain and sunshine, and may find ourselves walking under an arch of rainbow, a romantic scene reminiscent of the movie and song, Singing in the Rain. Old folks would rather grim with a kind of sadness on their faces, for they believe that such condition breeds caterpillars and other vermin that destroy their crops.

What could be the explanation to this belief? Thunderstorm is likely the kind of rain old folks are referring to. Warmth plus moisture is vital to egg incubation, and activation of aestivating insects, fungi, bacteria and the like. In a few days, they come out in search of food and hosts. Armyworms and cutworms (Spodoptera and Prodina), named after their huge numbers and voracious eating habit, are among these uninvited guests

50. Garlic drives the aswang away.

If aswang (ghost) being referred to are pests and diseases, then there is scientific explanation to offer, because garlic contains a dozen substances that have pesticidal, antimicrobial and antiviral properties such as allicin, from which its generic name of the plant is derived – Allium sativum. Garlic is placed on doorways, in the kitchen and some corners of the house where vermin usually hide, which is also practiced in other countries. It exudes a repellant odor found effective against insects and rodents – and to many people, also to evil spirits, such as the manananggal (half-bodied vampire). ~

Acknowledgement with gratitude: Cartoons and photos as indicated from Internet

Part 2 - Home Biotechnology - People’s Green Revolution

Dr Abe V Rotor

We wake up to the fresh aroma of coffee, chocolate, vanilla, the cured taste of dried tapa, tinapa, ham and bacon – all these are products of a mysterious process we generally call fermentation.

Aged wine is mellower, cured tobacco is more aromatic, naturally ripened fruits are sweeter, dried prunes, raisin and dates have higher sugar content and have longer shelf life. Seasoned toyo, bagoong and patis make fine cuisine, so with vanilla, chili, laurel, banana blossom, and annatto.

Why many foods taste better after allowing them to stand for sometime! Take suman, tupig, puto, bibingka, and the like. The real taste of pinakbet comes out an hour or two after it has been cooked. So with the Ilocos dinuguan.

Thanks to the myriads of beneficial microorganisms, and the complex chemistry working in our favor even while we are asleep. Indeed Nature works silently through her invisible agents and processes.

The vast potential uses of microorganisms - bacteria, algae, fungi and the like - in providing food, medicine and better environment to supply the requirements of our fast growing population and standard of living are being tapped by biotechnology. Biotechnology hand in hand with genetic engineering dominate the Green Revolution of this century – the fourth since Neolithic time.

Let me cite particular areas of biotechnology in which small entrepreneurs play a vital role and which they have proven themselves successful in one way or the other. The first group involves the production of alcoholic drinks and vinegar through fermentation. These products are

§ Tapoy (rice wine of the Cordillera equivalent to the Japanese kampei)

§ Basi (sugarcane)

§ Lambanog (distilled coconut wine)

§ Tuba (young wine from coconut)

§ Layaw (nipa)

§ Bahalina (coconut and tangal)

§ Fruit wine (kasoy, bignay, strawberry, pineapple, etc.)

§ Root crop wine (potato, kamote, cassava, yakon)

§ Beer (malted corn, rice, sorghum, barley, wheat, rye)

§ Vinegar (nipa, sugarcane, coconut, various fruits)

 

Basi, pride of the Ilocos Region; and rice wine, indigenous 

drink of the Cordillera region.

With readily available raw materials and simple tools used, brewing is a practical industry. More so, with the simplicity of fermentation itself - which is the conversion of sugar into ethanol through fermentation with yeast, as shown in this general formula?

C6H12O6 ------- 2C2H5OH + 2CO2

Sugar to Wine

This equation applies to all kinds of wine and beer in the world, varying only in the source of materials and technical aspects, cultural uniqueness notwithstanding. This is why wine making is universal. It is engrained in culture and history, and in all human activities. No ceremony is without wine. It is symbolic of religious faith and belief. And while there are popular brands in the market, still the best wine is found in the farmer’s cellar in Europe and Asia, or elsewhere.

The brewed product is either consumed immediately or allowed to age. Aging improves quality and lengthens the shelf life of the product. Wine making is an art, and a personalized enterprise, with each vintage or cellar having a distinctive quality trademark. Bordeaux in France for example, is famous for brandy, while the Scotch Whiskey remains a top grade liquor made from grains. Similarly we have basi in Ilocos, bahalina in the Visayas and lambanog in Southern Tagalog.

Wine does not go to waste if it fails to meet standards. And even if the brew is left unattended. Nature makes wine to vinegar. Vin-egar means sour wine. In chemistry it is oxidized ethyl alcohol, the product of which is acetic acid, as shown in this formula, similarly a universal one.

C2H5OH + O2 à CH3COOH + H2O

Wine or Ethyl Alcohol to Acetic Acid

Vinegar is perhaps the most common food preservative and additive. It is often associated with the local source such as Sukang Iloko and Sukang Paombong. Or material – sasa from nipa, pineapple vinegar, apple cider vinegar, etc.

Vinegar has many uses outside of the kitchen. Weed killer, bleaching agent, pesticide, drainage declogger, odor remover, etc. Many industries rely on this organic substance from food to textile to metallurgy.

The second group of products of village biotechnology are beverages, food condiments, tobacco and betel for chewing. Tea, coffee, fruit juice and chocolate, in this order, make up the world’s top beverages, thus pointing out the vast opportunities of biotechnology in this area.

§ Kapeng barako (Batangas and Cavite)

§ Cacao (Batangas, Mindanao)

§ Vanilla (Mindanao)

§ Tsaa (Batangas)

§ Fruit puree (mango, guyabano, pineapple, etc.,

Southern Tagalog, Mindanao)

§ Bagoong and patis (Navotas, Balayan, Dagupan)

§ Kesong Puti (Laguna)

§ Betel (Cordillera, Laguna, Ilocos)

§ Ketsup (banana, tomato)

§ Rolled tobacco (Cagayan Valley, Ilocos)Toyo (Southern Tagalog, Mindanao)

Like in the first group, these products are area-specific which point out to their indigenous production and processing, so with their patronage. Rolled tobacco or pinadis, for example, has a special market for old people who are used to the product – and not to the younger generation. This is also true with betel or nganga.

On the other hand, bagoong and patis, which used to be a specialty among Ilocanos, are now marketed abroad. So with kapeng barako a local coffee which is mainly grown in the highlands of Batangas and Tagaytay?

Fruit puree and fruit preserve, though relatively new, are amazingly growing fast, as people are shunning away from carbonated drinks. Because of high demand, these products became a boom to small growers, who recently are becoming mere conduits or raw products suppliers of big companies, instead of making and marketing the finished products themselves.

The third and largest group of village biotechnology products is in processed food.

§ Puto or rice cake, very popular among Filipinos

§ Bibingka (rice)

§ Maja (corn starch)

§ Burong manggang paho, mustasa (pickled mango, mustard)

§ Burong Isda (dalag and rice)

§ Hamon (manok, baboy, pato) ham

§ Tocino, longganisa

§ Itlog na pula and century egg

§ Balot and Penoy (incubated duck egg)

§ Tokwa (bean curd)

§ Taosi (fermented black bean)

§ Talangka (crab paste)

§ Pickles (papaya, carrot, amargoso, onion, cucumber, etc.)

§ Toge (mungo sprout)

§ Cakes (banana, cassava)

§ Ripening of fruits (with madre de cacao leaves)

Food processing constitutes the bulk of village biotechnology in developing countries, on both domestic and commercial scales. Like in the other groups, these undertakings are seldom organized as formal establishments; rather they fall under the category of informal economics which is life line of the people especially in these critical times.

The pioneering group, are the so-called “One-Celled Protein” food, a new term in food production by algae, fungi and bacteria. Actually many of these have long been known even in primitive societies because they grow in the wild.

· Spirulina (blue-green alga or BGA)
· Chlorella (green alga)
· Nostoc (BGA as food and fertilizer)
· Anabaena (BGA in symbiosis with Azolla a floating fern, for fertilizer and food)
· Nata - nata de coco, nata de piña (Leuconostoc mesenteroides, a capsule bacterium)
· Mushrooms –Pleurotus (abalone mushroom), Shitaki (black mushroom), Volvariella (banana mushrrom), Agaricus (rice hay mushroom), Auricularia or “tainga ng daga,” and many other edible mushrooms, cultivated or wild.

Let’s strive to make village biotechnology truly a Green Revolution of, for and by the people.

TATAKalikasan: AI to the Rescue! Birth of the NOOSPHERE Third Planetary Revolution

Lesson on TATAKalikasan, Ateneo de Manila University

87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan, every Thursday) 11 to 12 a.m. Feb 27, 2025

AI to the Rescue!

Birth of the NOOSPHERE Third Planetary Revolution - Collective Consciousness

Dr Abe V Rotor

avrotor.blogspot.com 

Co-Host with Fr JM Manzano SJ and Prof Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”- Albert Einstein

• Noosphere is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky and philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new state of the biosphere, and described it as the planetary "sphere of reason".
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. AI focuses chiefly on 5 components of intelligence: learning, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and using language.
• A transactive memory system (TMS) is a collective system for encoding, storing, and retrieving information in social systems, provides individuals access to more information than they individually possess. TMS is a mechanism through which groups collectively encode, store, and retrieve knowledge.
• The AI Outline Generator streamlines the process of organizing your thoughts into clear and structured outlines. Whether you’re crafting an essay, preparing a speech, or outlining a research paper, this tool is designed to make your writing journey easier and more efficient.
• Terminologies in our Postmodernism world "Living tomorrow today."): Ecomigration, Nones, Ecocentrism, Technocracy, Noosphere, Android, iPod, Collective Intelligence, Synchronicity, Transcendental Meditation, Surrogacy, Collective Effervescence, Bioengineering, Immortal Food, Reverse Radicalism or Deradicalization, Niche Aging, and many others.

References and Review Articles

Part 1 - Global trends that have been changing the way we live

Part 2 - Cellphone Radiation is Bad to Your Health  

Part 3 - The Mystery Child

Part 4 - I cannot feel - Computer

Part 5 - Quo vadis, Homo? Where are we going, humans?   

ANNEX - Transactive memory

                

Part 1 -The Noosphere - Third Planetary Evolution

Towards Global Collective Consciousness

Aftermath of September 11, 2001 (9/11)

The attack on the World Trade Center on the morning on September 11, 2001 (9/11) caused intense, excruciating painful surge of grief and anger and sadness to millions and millions all over the world via media, albeit personal experience at the site in NY, instantly forming a global collective consciousness, a sheathe of mental energy that actually altered the operation of computers,* thus ushering the birth of a third evolution of our planet – The Noosphere.                                                       

                                                           Dr Abe V Rotor

Collective consciousness is not new. It is traced to the binding force of our basic unit of society, the family, expanding to that in a tribe, community, onto the national level. Thus we have the term nationalism to which the citizens, bound by commonalities in language, customs, beliefs, laws, ideology and other factors, unite and pledge their allegiance with pride and respect. 

Today with cyber communication, social media, modern transport, breakthroughs in science and technology and growth of megacities, collective consciousness is evolving and inevitably expanding into a global scale.  It is visualized as a planetary sphere of mind, a mental sheathe of the earth. It is the third evolutionary event that our planet earth is undergoing.  It is called noosphere – the unity of all minds and its thinking layer, in the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1926).

Prior to this, the first planetary evolution resulted in the stabilization of our fiery and tumultuous planet to form the geosphere which later began to support life becoming a global ecological system millions of years later - the biosphere, which is our living world today. This time we are entering into a new evolution – that of the human mind: noosphere.  

Collective consciousness (sometimes collective conscience) is a fundamental sociological concept that refers to the set of shared beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and knowledge that are common to a social group or society. (Concept developed by Emile Durheim,  1894)

Towards a Noosphere from the Big Bang  in acrylic by AV Rotor  2001

The Computer and Social Media

With scientific breakthrough in communication, we are virtually just a call away from one another wherever we are at any given time. Worldwide we watch the same programs on TV and the Internet, celebrate common festivities, adapt standard curricula in school, ride cars, and build houses of common make and design. 

We keep abreast with the stock market, the same way with follow sports, fashion, and tourism. We shop on e-commerce, enroll in e-learning, preside over meeting via teleconference. The whole world is wired, so to speak.  We live in a very modern world indeed.  The gap of consciousness separating individuals is fast dissolving, and that between kids and grownup is narrowing down. In fact, in the world of computers the millennials are far ahead. “Students teach teachers” maybe an exaggeration but this is true with electronic devices and use of social media. This is a scenario to illustrate our expanding and converging collective consciousness in our postmodern era.  

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*Princeton University researchers have been trying to measure the hypothetical giant humanity-encompassing hive mind, by tracking the effect of events on a network of computers around the world. – Patrick J Kiger (9/11 and Global Consciousness)

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Collective Effervescence

But the earliest proof of collective consciousness is traced to aboriginal societies that practiced religion in its earliest and purest form by periodically gathering to eat, dance, cry, intoxicate, whip themselves to delirium, and the like.  Such state of collective consciousness and ecstasy brings material-spiritual and ideal-spiritual experiences to individual and social well-being. The effect is called  collective effervescence.

Ati-atihan festival in Aklan

Similarly we experience universal joy and merriment in Christmas, New Year, Valentine, and in lesser celebrations like Thanksgiving, Independence, and in local and family affairs. In fact collective consciousness strengthens our religious faith, sense of nationalism, stimulates our creativity, our compassion for one another, or simply takes us to fantasy as a coping mechanism from the harsh realities of life.   

However, what we wish from collective consciousness is the making of an ideal society - a society that is peaceful and harmonious, progressive and sustainable. It is a kind of collective consciousness we wish to create reminiscent of Plato’s Republic, though elusive, has been the dream of humankind.

Collective Consciousness and History

Theories have been put forward since the time of the Greeks and the Romans, whose adage “the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome” attests to that dream of an ideal society. Ironically, their civilizations declined and fell obscure in the Dark Ages. The term alone implies the dark period of human society which lasted for more than a millennium. Collective consciousness that bound the two civilizations, the Greco-Roman, was shattered and later its fragments were gathered and adapted by warring kingdoms or fiefs.

It was in the Renaissance Period starting in the 15th century that our world found a new beginning – the revival of collective consciousness, a prototype of the old Greco-Roman values, ranging from religion and the humanities to politics and socio-economics.   It flourished quickly in its place of origin, Florence, and swept across Europe onto the opposite side of the globe.  The age of colonization carried out this social reform to different parts of the world, including the Philippines.  The birth of new nations which joined other nations including former masters, ultimately after WWI, formed the United Nations which is the world’s umbrella of cooperation and peace.    

Again our collective consciousness was divided by the Cold War which separated the world into two ideologies – capitalism and socialism.  The world stood still in fear of a possible Armageddon.  Fortunately the Cold War ended in 1989 with the reunification of divided countries like Germany and Vietnam, and th dissolution of USSR. Collective consciousness began to take shape under a freer global system of politics and economics, and in fact, with the development of modern communication and transportation, the world shrunk into a “global village.” Globalization had begun.    

Jungian Collective Unconscious

As a background, collective consciousness has a counterpart - collective unconscious which has genetic roots the psychologist Carl Jung termed as archetypes.   It is some kind of “inherited psychic materials,” that link each and every one of us as a species on one hand, and we today with our ancestors in the past, on the other. According to Jung’s theory, though each of us appears to function independently, in actuality we are all trapped into the same global mind. 

These archetypes or instincts are hunger, sexuality, activity, reflection and creativity, in the order of increasing abstraction.  This laid down the three-tier ladder of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, from primordial to spiritual forms. These constitute the so-called Jungian concept of Collective Unconscious that governs our collective behavior that subordinates our own, guided and guarded by the norms of our society he termed as synchronicity.  Archetypes are therefore the genetic link of our species and the components of our rationality as Homo sapiens.

The importance and value of being aware of the collective unconscious is visualized this way: “Myriad invisible hands hold your hands and direct them.  When you rise in anger, a great grandfather froths at your mouth, when you make love, an ancestral caveman growls with lust; when you sleep, tombs open in your memory till your skull brims with ghosts.”  (Carl Jung: A Living Myth - Collective Intelligence yields Collective Action) 

The Jungian concept of collective unconscious places utmost importance in the preservation of our tradition, beliefs, myths and other ethnic values, though they may be lacking in scientific evidences.  For all we know, the awareness of our connection with our forebears that make us realize the vital role of such genetic inheritance. Which leads us to realize with awe and respect to our ancestors who lived happier and more fulfilled lives than we do in our postmodern era.

                                      Transcendental Meditation

This leads us to the spiritual side of collective consciousness - transcendental meditation and its correlation to world peace.  

“Transcendental Meditation program, or the group practice of the TM-Sidhi program by a sufficient group raised the level of coherence in collective consciousness, thus providing a stable basis for a lasting world peace. Increases in societal coherence have been operationally defined as  decreases in armed conflicts, crimes, traffic fatalities, fires, suicides, hospital admissions, notifiable diseases, infant mortality, divorce, alcohol consumption, cigarette consumption, unemployment, and pollution; and increases in international cooperation, stock market indices, leading and coincident economic indicators, and GNP.” (Maharishi's Program to Create World Peace: Theory and Research David W. Orme-Johnson and Michael C. Dillbeck Maharishi International University, 2016 Fairfield, Iowa, U.S.A.)

The Noosphere

What are the challenges of the new evolution – The Noosphere?

First, collective consciousness through meditation can release us of fear, anxiety, anger and tension, and help bring peace of mind vital to the attainment of world peace and order.

Second, collective consciousness offers an avenue to resolve divided loyalties and faiths, incompatible ideologies, race discriminations, border conflicts, particularly our present growing problem of terrorism.

Dr Jose Rizal, Philippine National Hero

Third, collective consciousness, in order to attain global significance and integrity must exert cumulative power to unite, amalgamate existing and new consciousness, and revitalize waning unity and cooperation of social groups, cultures, and nations, through education, mass media and organizational strategies.

Fourth, collective consciousness must be strengthened and guided towards greater regional cooperation such as ASEAN, EU, APEC, and more assertive global summits and conferences, like Climate Change, the United Nations notwithstanding, all geared towards world peace and unity.

Fifth, collective consciousness, on the compassionate, benevolent and humanistic side, must be cognizant of the lessons set by history and great leaders in the past and present from Aristotle, Christ, Gandhi, Lincoln, Paul, Teresa, Mandela, to our own Jose Rizal, and other great men and women.

Outlook

Lofty indeed is the potential power of the envisioned noosphere in shaping humanity in the future with one-mind, one-heart, one-psyche at the expense of losing much of our rich diversity of intellect, behavior and emotions, and spirituality, physical attributes and health considerations notwithstanding.

Savants are divided. Rationality will make us seek and preserve freedom in many and unimaginable forms and means, retaining our connectivity with the past and the future, and our environment through collective DNA carried on through evolution, and from generation to generation. We belong to this genetic pool. We are natives of Planet Earth.

Personally as a biologist we are heading toward the sunset of our own species. By the way, all species without exemption follow a normal curve of emergence-plateau-decline and finally extinction, in favor of other species under the law of succession (seres) and pattern of the web of life. We may seem to have reached the plateau of our species. This is dangerous. A Damocles Sword hangs above us, forged by our superior intellect. What with the possibility of global nuclear war, unabated wastes generation resulting in progressive autotoxicity or genocide. By manipulating the plantilla (template) of life through genetic engineering, we destroy homeostasis or the balance of nature. We have altered the composition of the earth as modern alchemists. In short we are destroying paradise the second time around. The noosphere could be our saving grace, or at least it gives us respite to examine and amend our wasteful and evil ways in the guise of The Good Life.

To the futuristic minds, man shall be leaving the earth and live in another planet, perhaps a million years from now. By then I believe Homo sapiens that we are today shall be no longer us. ~

Guest Editorial

For the Greater Lagro Gazette 2017 by AVRotor

Acknowledgement with thanks: Internet

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The Noosphere is the sphere of thought enveloping the Earth. The word comes from the Greek noos (mind) and sphaira (sphere). The Noosphere is the third stage of Earth's development, after the geosphere (think rocks, water, and air) and the biosphere (all the living things).

 

The noosphere is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new state of the biosphere and described as the planetary "sphere of reason". Wikipedia ~

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Two critical spots - Israel War in Gaza and Russian War in Ukraine - other trouble areas notwithstanding, continue building up worldwide anxiety and fear of potential global consequence reminiscent of the past two World Wars. Such consciousness is expanding across boundaries political, religious, ideological, cultural and the like, all ensconced in this new era called Noosphere 

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Part 2 - Topics to research on and keep abreast with our fast changing world

Dr Abe V Rotor

We are in the age of knowledge explosion. Every time we wake up there's always something new that touches our lives more directly and profoundly than in any period of human history.

On the other hand we are also facing a dilemma I call infollution, a contracted term for information pollution. Knowledge used to be what we seek and acquire through necessity and obligation, much of it through choice which was limited then. And we knew the measure and pace of learning. We had a better situation in what we should know or choose to know with the guidance of the family, community and the institutions.

Well, that was when the world was divided by distance, walls of culture, politics, etc. When the writers of history were mainly from the West. In the 1000 years that plunged the world into the Dark Ages. When empires split into fiefs and kingdoms. When the West colonized the East. When capitalism and socialism clashed. So with religions. When the Berlin Wall stood for half a century.

Then boom! Science and technology made the world walk on two large feet, so to speak: communication and transportation. Everyone is now a neighbor in a small global village. And he wants to know what's happening at the other side of the fence.

Now that globalization has shrunk the world, wired it, crisscrossed it with routes - land, water and air, and above all, with information highway, how does one stand amidst an overflowing pool of knowledge?

Here we are with a sample list of topics to research on.

University of Santo Tomas, oldest university in Asia, older than Harvard

1. Are we prisoners of our Genes? (Sociobiology and Human Behavior)

2. Post-Modernism

3. Whose History?

4. Ecosabotage

5. Globalization and Sunset of Nationalism

6. Sex tourism and the Patriotism Prostitute

7. Depression and Suicide

8. The Rainforest: Best Tribes and Lost Knowledge

9. Urbanization and Industrialization

10. Changing Image of Women

11. “Rent-a-uterus” (Surrogate Mothers)

12. Cybercommunication (Wiring the Globe)

13. Opposition to Technology (e.g. Unabomber)

14. Human Genome Project (HGP)

15. Pornography

16. Misguiding the Future

17. Body Beautiful

18. Cultism

19. The Fine Art of Propaganda

20. Homogenization and Loss of Cultural Diversity

21. Social Change and the Natural Environment

22. Age of Robotics

23. Religion and the Spirit of Capitalism

24. Endangered Species and Ecosystems

25. Social and Pandemic Human Diseases

26. Terrorism

27. Neocolonialism

28. Three Worlds of Development

29. Why Social Stratification is Universal

30. Imperialism and Capitalism

31. Capitalism and Consumerism

32. The “McDonaldization” of Society

33. Is EU Applicable in Asia?

Symbol of our revolution whaich has started with the age of computers, the creation of a noosphere - which literally means one mind-one world, visualized as a mental sheath over the globe.  

34. Japanese vs American Corporate Culture

35. Origin and Migration of Man

36. Genetic Engineering and Human Cloning

37. Gene Therapy: Frontier of Today’s Medicine

38. Vatican and Conservatism

39. Born to Buy (Consumerism)

40. IMF-WB and Capitalism

41. China: Socialism to Capitalism

42. India and China Dominate World’s Population: Forecast Consequences

43. The Expanding Field of Bioethics

44. Whatever happened to Space Race?

45. Why is the Philippines dubbed Rip Van Winkle of Asia?

46. Why is the Philippines the second most corrupt country in Asia, and among the world’s top countries with highest crime rate.

47. We are in the Age of Design

48. Natural Farming: A Return to Tradition

49. From Global Warming to Ice Age

50. Mind Benders (Brain Drugs)

51. Was Darwin Wrong? (Evolution Today)

52. Aftermath of the Cold War

53. Unsolved Murders of Philippine Journalists

54. Parliamentary or Presidential Government for the Philippines?

55. Herbal medicine – a Thing of the Past

56. Longevity Trends - Effects on Society

57. The New China – from Socialism to Capitalism

58. Effects of TV and Computers on child development

59. The Sunset of Fine Arts

60. Sustainable Agriculture

61. Sunset of apartheid and racism

62. Will China overtake the US as the world's biggest economy?

63. Same sex marriage - winning or waning?

64. Don't forget your pill, darling

65. Human Genome Project II

66. Gene therapy, latest in medicine.

67. Global Warming - more consequences than we expected

68. Ecological Migration

69. Where have all the fish gone?

70. Vertical farming. Farming in multistory buildings in the city.

Guidelines to students who are going to submit their research as school requirement:

1. Research paper must be printed (12 pts New Times Roman), 10 to 12 pages, short bond, single space excluding illustrations and photos, in folder.

2. Final copy to be submitted before presentation of topic in class. No paper, no report.

3. References at least 5: journal, books, news magazine, popular publications, Internet, interviews, company papers and documents.

4. Parts of paper: Introduction and rationale, review of literature, research proper, case studies (including interviews), conclusion, media advocacy.

5. Presentation - 10 min, open forum –5; use audio-visual aids (conventional and electronic); other presentation methods.~

Part 1 - Global trends that have been changing the way we live 

The Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) stunned and shackled the world for four long years,  followed by the Russian war in Ukraine War, Israel War in Gaza, and now, we are confronted with worldwide recession, and impending economic depression - these, and many other reasons compel us to "change the way we live".

Dr Abe V Rotor

The adage, "History repeats itself," is real: The rise and fall of the Greco-Roman Empire; the Dark Age - aftermath of the Bubonic Plague pestilence; two world wars in succession; and the recent Spanish Influenza (1920-22) which killed 50 to 100 million people. Other lost cultures like the Mayans, American Indians that "history forgot," notwithstanding.

And whose making are these tragic episodes of history? Albert Einstein has this to say, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” In this era of pandemic and post pandemic, we have yet to prove under the new normal humanity's resilience and resolve to cope up and prove that "history repeats itself for the better." Then, suddenly without apparent warning, the Russian-Ukraine conflict is escalating into war of global concern.  Pessimists both from the old and new schools say it is  the beginning of a third world war.

Global Warming, and Shrinking Nature, paintings by AVR 2015

1. Shrinking Nature - displacement of natural habitats with man-made settlements, wildlife is vanishing both in areas and biological diversity. Nature reserves cannot compensate for such loss, and will never be able to bring about ecological balance as a whole. "It is no longer us against Nature, instead it's we who decide what nature is and what it will be." says Paul Crutzen, Nobel Prize Awardee.

2. Stressful modern living - the higher the status the more stressful life is. The social ladder takes us to the syndrome posed by Paulus' Hope for the Flowers. There is really nothing up there, but a stressful life at the apex of society. The stressors affecting the poor are different from those in higher society. Those suffering of high-status stress find it more difficult to adjust than their counterpart in lower society.

3. Loss of privacy - Yet we always strive to retain our privacy even in public. No way: the computer has all the info about us - true or not; our relationships on various levels, more so with our public image. Hidden cameras are everywhere, on the other hand we too, intrude into the privacy of others. GPS gives us information about places, with minute details, often intruding to one's privacy similar to trespassing.

4. Aging gracefully and Niche Aging - Forget conventional wisdom; gray-haired societies aren't a problem. Longevity is increasing all over the world: the average age of a Japanese is 78 years with America following at its heels with 75 or 76 years. We are quite close to China with at least 70 years. Science and technology, socio-cultural and economic opportunities make ageing a privilege today.

In an article - Niche Aging, author Harriet Barovick said, "...the generic settlement model is starting to give way to what developers are calling affinity housing - niche communities where people as they advance in age opt to grow old alongside others who share a specific interest. Niche living is the latest step in the evolution of the planned retirement community.

5. "Immortal" Food - Food that virtually last forever (by increasing the shelf life), while there is a current trend which is the opposite. Go natural - food, clothing, energy, housing, and practically anything we eat and use everyday. (See article, Living Naturally, in this Blog)

6. Black Irony - Blackness has many connotations and implications - principally, historical and religious. Black means race, hell, disease, death, hopelessness, discrimination. But all these cannot  be grossly weighed as negative or destructive. Today when we talk of black we may be referring to the colored athletes who dominate many sports, great leaders of movements like Wangari who planted millions of trees in Kenya, and not to look far, former President Obama of the US, and the living hero of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Racial discrimination - racism and apartheid - may soon be a thing of the past. It is because man is created equal beneath their skin, and in fact, by circumstance, the colored races have proved superiority over the non-colored: in schools, scientific discoveries, business, technology - name it and you have a colored standing out.

7. "Handprints, not Footprints" - a more encouraging way to conceptualize our impact in our handprints; the sum of all the reductions we make in our footprints." 

Eye of a dying coral as a result of global warming and pollution by AV Rotor 2005

Says the brainchild of this idea, a Harvard professor. We can reduce the impact of living against the environment - less CO2, less CFC, less non-biodegradables and other synthetics, less pesticides, etc. On the other side of the equation would be the number of trees we plant, our savings on electricity and water. Lesser pollutants, if not arresting pollution itself - and the like.

8. "Your head is in the cloud" - The best way to explain this is in the article written by Annie Murphy Paul. To quote: "Inundated by more information that we can possibly hold in our heads, we're increasingly handing off the job of remembering to search engines and smart phones." Never mind memorizing the multiplication table, or Mendeleev's Periodic Table of Elements. Spelling of a word, its homonym, antonym? Check it out on the computer. Presto! it will correct the word automatically. Search Love, and it comes in a thousand-and-one definitions. Assignment? Search, download, print, submit - just don't forget to place your name. Psychologists are back to the drawing board about learning. They have proposed a new term - transactive memory, a prelude to blending natural and artificial intelligence.

9. The rise of Nones - Nones are people who have no religious affiliation. More and more people are dissociating from organized religions, a kind of freedom to feel more devoted to God, of moving away from the scandals of the church, and money-making religions . For most, they are not rejecting God. They are rejecting organized religion as being rigid and dogmatic. However, a survey in the US showed that spiritual connection and community hasn't be severed by this new trend. Forty percent (40%) of the unaffiliated are fairly religious, and many of them are still hoping to eventually find the right religious home.

10. Living alone is the new norm - Solitary living is spreading all over the world. It is the biggest social change that has been long neglected. Living solo is highest in Sweden (47%), followed by Britain (37%). Following the list in decreasing order are Japan, Italy, US, Canada, Russia, South Africa, Kenya, and Brazil (10%). Living alone helps people pursue sacred modern values - individual freedom, personal control and self realization. In Lonely American, however, Harvard psychiatrists warn of increased aloneness and the movement toward greater social isolation, which are detrimental to health and happiness to the person, and in the long run, to the community and nation.

11. Common Wealth - National interests aren't what they used to be. Our survival requires global solutions. The defining challenge of the 21st century will be to face the reality that humanity shares a common fate on a crowded planet. Global warming, acid rain, El Niño, don't know political boundaries.

12. The End of Customer Service - With self-service technology, you'll never have to see a clerk again. It is an era of self-service - from filling up gas to banking to food service. Swipe your ID card to enter an office or a school campus. Credit cards abound, so with many kinds of coupons, all self service.

13. The Post-Movie-Star Era. Get ready for more films in which the leading man is not "he" but "Who?" Goodbye James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Fernando Poe Jr. Welcome Nemo in Finding Nemo, Xi in Gods Must be Crazy.

14. Reverse Radicalism . Want to stop terrorism? Start talking to terrorists who stop themselves. Conflicts arising from radicalism can be settled through peaceful rather than by bloody means.

15. Kitchen Chemistry . Why the squishy art of cooking is giving way to cold, hard science? There are specialized courses in culinary art, with the chef as central figure with a degree. Home economics has grown into Hotel and Restaurant Management.

16. Geoengineering . Messing with Nature caused global warming. Messing with it more might fix it. Can we ignite a volcano to cool the earth like the eruption of Mt Pinatubo did twenty five years ago? Scientists believe we can divert an approaching typhoon out of its path. Better still abort it at its early stage.

17.Curing the "Dutch Disease." How resource-rich nations can unravel the paradox of plenty. It's true, oil-rich nations in the Middle East - and Holland, and lately Nigeria, where the term was developed - are not growing fast in terms of Gross Domestic Products (GDP). Now compare this is non-oil rich nations like China and Vietnam, which are growing close to 10 percent annually in GDP.

18. Women's Work. Tapping the female entrepreneurial; spirit can pay big dividends. Women's Lib brought the female species at par - if not excel - with its counterpart. More and more women are occupying high positions in government and industries. Women may soon have higher literacy rates than men.

19. Beyond the Olympics. Coming: Constant TV coverage of global sporting events. Boxing grew into various titles, football games in various tournaments fill the TV screen. New sports and games are coming out.

20. Jobs Are the New Assets. A sampling of fast-growing occupations - Actuaries, financial analyst, computer programmer, fitness trainer, biophysicists, translators, manicurists, marriage counselors, radiologists. Need a design for your product? Give  it to an IT graduate with a background in design. Need a kind of product or service not found in the mall or supermarket, search the Internet. Entrepreneurs have taken over much of the functions of big business. Unemployment has given rise to this new breed - the entrepreneurs.

21. Recycling the Suburbs. Environmentalists will celebrate the demise of sprawling suburbs, which left national addicted to cars. Infrastructures will be converted in favor of "green", town centers, public libraries, museums, sports centers, parks. Notice the gas stations along NLEX and South Road, they have transformed into a complex where motorists can enjoy their brief stopover. More and more countries are imposing regulation to green the cities, from sidewalks to rooftops. Hanging Gardens of Babylon, anyone?  If this was one of the wonders of the ancient world, why certainly we can make a replicate - perhaps a bigger one - given all our modern technology and enormous available capital.

22. The New Calvinism. More moderate evangelicals are exploring cures for doctrinal drift, offering some assurance to "a lot of young people growing up in sub-cultures of brokenness, divorce, drugs, sexual temptations, etc."

23. Reinstating the Interstate, the Superhighways. These are becoming a new network of light rail and "smart power" electric grid. This is the alternative to car culture that thrives on fossil fuel and promotes suburban sprawl.

24. Amortality - "non-moral sensitive" or "neutral morality' - whatever you may call it, this thinking has revolutionized our attitudes toward age. There are people who "refuse to grow old," people who wish to be resurrected from his cryonized corpse.

Our Dying Earth becoming virtually a fossil planet, painting by the author

25. Africa , Business Destination. Next "economic miracle" is in the black continent. Actually it has began stirring the economic consciousness of investors and developers.

26. The Rent-a-Country. Corporate Farming, an approach pioneered by the Philippines in the 60's and 70s, is now adopted by giant companies to farm whole valleys, provinces, island, of countries other than their own. Call it neo-colonialism, - these are food contracts, the latest new green revolution, more reliable food security.

27. Biobanks. Safe deposits - freezers full of tissues for transplants, cryotude for blood samples, liquid nitrogen storage for sperms and eggs, test-tube baby laboratories and clinics. Welcome, surrogate motherhood, post-menopausal technology, in-situ cloning, multiple birth technology, and the like.

28. Survival Stores. Sensible shops selling solar panels, electric bicycles, power generators, energy food bars, portable windmill, etc. Attributes: living off the grid, smart recycling, sustainability, consume less, self-sufficiency, basic+ useful, durable lifetime guarantee, hip + cool community, independent, responsible, co-op, brand-free, out of the oven, goodness-driven, health fitness, meditation, bartering, sharing, socialistic capitalism.

29. Ecological Intelligence. There are guidelines now available to judge products on their social and environmental impact. This is new culture characterized by environment-consciousness, environment-friendliness. Here life-cycle assessment and clean-up corporate ecology become an obligation. We are going back - happily and beautifully to a simple and natural lifestyle.

30. Ecomigration - As global warming continues and the sea level rises more and more low lying areas will be swallowed up by the sea. Before this happens, people will have to move to safer grounds. This phenomenon is happening to many island in the Pacific, among them the Kiribati and Micronesia groups of islands. 

Distorted reality - a product of postmodernism, acrylic painting by AVRotor

Reference: Living with Nature Volumes 1 and 2 by A V Rotor; Time Magazine, March 24, 2008 and March 23, 2009; Time Magazine March 12, 2012; Internet

Part 2 - Cellphone Radiation is Bad to Your Health  

Don't gamble on your life, and learn about the reasons why increased cell phone use can have short-term and long-term effects on your health.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog

• Lesson for Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid July 5 2016
• Case Study of Cancer in Mumbai
• How Mobile Phones Affect Sleep
• 5 Reasons Why Cellphones Are Bad For Your Health
• Visual pollution

1. Case Study Usha Riran Building Worli Mumbai Towers sending tumour signals

By Hemal Ashar |Posted 03-Jan-2010
Mumbai's swanky Usha Kiran building says the four cancer cases there could be linked to mobile towers installed on the facing Vijay Apartments

Mobile towers or mobile tumours? That is the question. A slew of buildings in the plush Carmichael Road area in South Mumbai, have come together to appeal to Vijay Apartments to remove mobile towers on top of their building, to prevent harmful radiation. The trigger is a couple of cancer cases in Usha Kiran building located opposite Vijay Apartments.

 

Though studies have not yet shown proof of a direct link between mobile tower radiation and cancer, Burjor Cooper, chairman, Carmichael Road Citizen's Committee, (CRCC) echoes the sentiments of those opposed to the towers in his recent appeal, when he says: "It will take several years for the completion of conclusive research and for any restrictions and safety standards to be implemented -- with the result that many innocent lives could be lost because of the harmful effects of mobile phone towers."

'Remove mobile towers'

Buildings that are supporting Usha Kiran and have joined in the appeal are: Rushila building, Ghia Mansion, Anand-Kamal Co-Op Society, Everest House and Indira Premises Co-Op Society.

Though debate on the issue has been simmering for six months now, things have heated up since the past two months, with written appeals and meetings with Vijay Apartments to disband the towers.

Fatal signals
The appeal, also signed by Prakash Patel, treasurer, CRCC, elaborates: "There are three cases of brain tumours (two cases are of a cancerous nature and one case of recurrent/aggressive meningioma) and one case of bone cancer, all four cases in the recent past in Usha Kiran building. These three floors are directly facing and at the same height as the two mobile phone towers placed on the roof of the building (Vijay Apartments) on the opposite side of the road.

"These life-threatening health issues have been either caused or enhanced by the high levels of Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR) emitted by mobile phone towers. The health hazards arising from such EMR emissions of mobile phone towers is now recognised in all developed countries and the numerous research reports have been published overseas." They say the towers must be removed to prevent widespread panic too.

Inconsequential findings
Siddharth Bhandari, chairman, Vijay Apartments building society says, "There has been no hostility, either from our side or Usha Kiran. Some months ago, scientists from the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) agency in Mumbai did measure the radiation from the towers on our building. It fell within permissible limits.

"We went to Usha Kiran with these findings but they said it was inconsequential, we need to remove the towers anyway."

Risk to families
Bhandari says, "We need to have a solid case to convince society members that these towers, which have been on the building for more than three years, have to be removed. As a resident of the nine-storey building, I reside on the top floor closest to the tower. Even I do not want to expose my family to any radiation risk.

Nobody would. Yet, is there a link between the cancer cases and the mobile towers? Is there reasonable doubt? We have to find out for sure. We also have asked that if we remove the towers then no other building in the vicinity be allowed to put towers.

Ghia Mansion's Shyam B Ghia's letter to Usha Kiran dated October 6, 2009 allays those doubts. It says: "To assure Vijay Apartments' residents that their cooperation is not nullified by future unneighbourly (sic) actions by other societies the undersigned societies undertake and indemnify Vijay Apartments that they themselves will not install any cell phone tower in future." 

Not convinced
The Indira Premises Co-operative Society letter says: "In the year 2001, our society was approached by Orange (now Vodafone) for permission to install cell phone towers on our terrace for handsome money consideration to the society. In a special general meeting convened for this specific purpose, the officials of Orange tried to convince our members that there were no known radiation hazards to the residents or to those in the neighbouring buildings.

"In spite of their assurances, our society decided not to allow any installation of cell phone tower on our terrace and subsequently, Vijay Apartments was approached by them."         

Health or wealth
Bhandari would not reveal how much money the building was making because of the mobile phone towers, though he did say there was a financial consideration. When asked if there had been a resident recently afflicted with cancer in Vijay Aparments, he candidly said yes. Yet he sought to dispel the notion that Vijay Apartments' residents were callous and money hungry, stating categorically, "Our building residents are not putting money before health considerations."

Bhandari says Vijay Apartments is set to hold another radiation testing in the second week of January 2010, with the "mobile towers switched off. If the testing shows a substantial drop in radiation levels with the towers switched off, we would have to decide how to take this further".  

Lakhs or lives?
The angry opposition says testing will not prove anything conclusively, but "all over the world, studies are being done about mobile towers and cancer. Years ago, there was no 'conclusive' proof that cigarettes caused cancer too, but down the line it was proved. So, what are we waiting for? People to die before case studies prove 'conclusively' that mobile cell phone towers are a cancer risk? Is Rs 20 lakh more important than a person's life?"  

The rich and the famous
Carmichael Road is one of Mumbai's priciest real estates. Perched on a steep gradient next to its equally pricey neighbour, Altamount Road (labelled as the Millionnaire's Row), Carmichael Road's landmark Usha Kiran building has flats going at more than Rs 90,000 a square foot. The Ambanis were former Usha Kiran residents.
Now, Mukesh Ambani's hyped Antillia building is under construction just ten minutes away on Altamount Road. Kumaramangalam Birla's Adityayan Mangal bungalow is on Carmichael Road. JRD Tata's heritage bungalow is also on Altamount Road.

What doctors say
Dr Suresh Advani, chief oncologist, Jaslok Hospital, says: "I am very clear that there is no evidence or scientific proof of a link between mobile towers and cancer. The link between tobacco and cancer did not take years to establish, it was known since the very beginning earlier than the 1940s or 50s in fact.

"This is a wrong comparison. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they may cause cancer."

Yet, concerned citizens have collected a huge database of international reports that state cell phone towers are a health hazard, quoting two-time Nobel prize nominee Dr Gerald Hyland who says, "Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate. Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by governments and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests."

Says Dr V V Haribhakti, consultant surgical oncologist, "I am unaware of any studies proving a conclusive link.

The last I read was a Scandinavian study which says there is no link between mobile phone towers and cancer.
I don't think there is any solid evidence supporting this so. I do not think towers should be removed."  

What about Jaslok?
Ironically, the Jaslok Hospital, just 120 meters away from Vijay Apartments, has mobile phone towers on top of the structure.

Says Jaslok Hospital CEO Colonel M Masand, "We are not the only building in the vicinity to have these towers.

So far, there is no proof or data from any prominent authority saying that radiation from the towers is harmful.

If anybody shows me proof, I would be the first to throw away these towers." 

 

   

 

2. How Mobile Phones Affect Sleep (INFOGRAPHIC)

02/15/2013 12:40 pm ET | Updated Mar 22, 2013

·  Katy Hall Managing Features Editor, Huffington Post·  Chris Spurlock

Most people who own iPhones use them as their alarm clock — making it all too easy to check email one last time before falling asleep and hard to ever feel unplugged from work and social networks.

Several years ago my boss, Arianna Huffington, passed out from exhaustion after staying up late to catch up on work. She banged her head on the way down and ended up with five stitches — and became what she calls a “sleep evangelist.” Now she leaves her phone charging in another room when she goes to bed and encourages friends to do the same.

“I sent all my friends the same Christmas gift — a Pottery Barn alarm clock — so they could stop using the excuse that they needed their very tempting iPhone by their bed to wake them up in the morning,” she said.

If your phone wakes you up in the morning, it may also be keeping you up at night. A 2008 study funded by major mobile phone makers themselves showed that people exposed to mobile radiation took longer to fall asleep and spent less time in deep sleep. 

“The study indicates that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals components of sleep believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear are adversely affected,” the study concluded. 

And that’s just a physical symptom of sleeping near the phone — “sham” exposure to a phone without radiation failed to produce the same effect. The itch to check in at all hours of the night or wake up to the sound of a text message disrupts our sleep, too. A quarter of young people feel like they must be available by phone around the clock, according to a Swedish study that linked heavy cell phone use to sleeping problems, stress and depression. Unreturned messages carry more guilt when the technology to address them lies at our fingertips. Some teens even return text messages while they are asleep. 

Most of us choose not to set limits on our nighttime availability. Nearly three-quarters of people from the age of 18 to 44 sleep with their phones within reach, according to a 2012 Time/Qualcomm poll. That number falls off slightly in middle age, but only in people 65 and older is leaving the phone in another room as common as sleeping right next it. This story appears in Issue 42 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, March 29.

Consumer News
3. Five Reasons Why Cellphones Are Bad For Your Health
Jul 12, 2013 01:15 PM By Lizette Borreli

  Constant cell phone use can impose a lifetime of health issues. Here are five reasons why. Ed Yourdon

Ninety-one percent of American adults and 60 percent of teens own this device that has revolutionized communication in the 21st century — the cellphone. Whether you own an Android, an iPhone, a Blackberry, or a basic flip phone, chances are you check your phone for messages, alerts, or calls even when your mobile device isn't ringing or vibrating, reports a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. The modern convenience that cell phones provide is responsible for everyone's increased daily use. According to the Morningside Recovery Rehabilitation Center, the average American spends 144 minutes a day using his or her phone during a 16-hour period. With an estimated six billion subscriptions worldwide and counting, cell phones have become one of the fundamental means of communication in society.

While cell phones provide an efficient and easy way to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers, excessive use can take a toll on your health. Mobile phones use transmitting radio waves through a series of base stations where radiofrequency waves are electromagnetic fields that cannot break chemical bonds or cause ionization in the human body, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Although cellphones are considered to be low-powered radiofrequency transmitters, your handset transmits power when it is on, and therefore it is important to increase your distance from the handset to reduce radiofrequency exposure. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggests cell phone users to keep a minimum distance of 20 centimeters from their handset to significantly reduce radiation exposure. Adults and especially children can suffer the long-term effects of radiation waves on the brain. "Young children particularly need to be careful," Dr. Devra Davis, director for environmental oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, told CNN.com. "We do not have enough information nor do we have enough time to be sure that cell phones are safe, and there's reason for concern that they may be harmful," she said. The University of Pittsburgh also warned its faculty and staff to limit their cell phone use due to the possible cancer risks.
 Don't gamble on your life, and learn about the reasons why increased cell phone use can have short-term and long-term effects on your health.

Negatively Affects Emotions

The presence of a cell phone while two or more people are talking face-to-face can generate negative feelings toward the person who has his or her device visible. In two studies conducted at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, researchers studied the effects of a mobile device during a nose-to-nose conversation. In the first study, 37 pairs of strangers were asked to spend 10 minutes talking to each other about an interesting event that happened in their lives within the past month. Half of the participants were seated in a secluded area with a mobile device present on a desk nearby whereas the other half remained without a cellphone. The results of the study showed that those who had a mobile device nearby were perceived less positive by the stranger, compared to the other participants without a cell phone present.

In the second study, researchers included 34 different pairs of strangers who were asked to discuss trivial topics while others were asked to discuss significant events that occurred in their life. Half of the participants chatted with a mobile device while with the stranger and the other half had a notebook. The results of the study showed that those who spoke about significant events in their lives with a notebook present experienced a feeling of closeness and trust in the stranger, unlike those with a cell phone. "These results demonstrate that the presence of mobile phones can interfere with human relationships, an effect that is most clear when individuals are discussing personally meaningful topics," said the researchers of the study.

Increases Stress Levels

The high frequency of cell phone use can have negative effects on our stress levels. The constant ringing, vibrating alerts, and reminders can put a cell phone user on edge. In a study conducted at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, researchers examined if there is a direct link between the psychosocial aspects of cell phone use and mental health symptoms in young adults. The participants of the study included 20 to 24 year olds who responded to a questionnaire, in addition to a one-year follow-up. Researchers found high mobile phone use was associated with stress and sleep disturbances for women, whereas high mobile phone use was associated with sleep disturbances and symptoms of depression in men. Overall, excessive cell phone use can be a risk factor for mental health issues in young adults.

Increases Risk Of Illnesses In Your Immune System

The incessant touching of your phone can harbor germs on your handset. The greasy, oily residue you may see on your cellphone after a day's use can contain more disease-prone germs than those found on a toilet seat. In a study conducted at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London, researchers sampled 390 cell phones and hands to measure for levels of bacteria. The results of the study showed that 92 percent of the cell phones sampled had bacteria on them — 82 percent of hands had bacteria — and 16 percent of cell phones and hands had E. Coli. Fecal matter can easily be transferred by cell phones from one person to another.

Increases Risk Of Chronic Pain

Cell phones require constant use of your hands, especially when sending text messages and e-mails. Responding to messages at rapid speed can cause pain and inflammation of your joints. Back pain is also common with increased cell phone use, especially if you hold the phone between your neck and shoulders as you multitask. "Long periods of cell phone use cause you to arch your neck and hold your body in a strange posture. This can lead to back pain," says Healthcentral.com.

Increases Risk Of Eye Vision Problems

Staring at your mobile device can cause problems in your vision later in life. Screens on mobile devices tend to be smaller than computer screens, which means you are more likely to squint and strain your eyes while reading messages. According to The Vision Council, more than 70 percent of Americans don't know or are in denial that they are susceptible to digital eye strain.

4. Visual pollution

---

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_pollution
Updated: 2016-04-20T03:08Z

Visual pollution is an aesthetic issue and refers to the impacts of pollution that impair one's ability to enjoy a vista or view.

Visual pollution disturbs the visual areas of people by creating negative changes in the natural environment. Billboards, open storage of trash, space debris, telephone towers, electric wires, buildings and automobiles are forms of visual pollution. An overcrowding of an area causes visual pollution. Visual pollution is defined as the whole of irregular formations, which are mostly found in natural and built environments.

Effects of exposure to visual pollution include: distraction, eye fatigue, decreases in opinion diversity, and loss of identity.

Artificial tree to hide a mobile phone base station

Sources

By administrative negligence, local managers of urban areas lose control over what is built and assembled in public places. As businesses look for ways to increase profits, cleanliness, architecture, logic and use of space in urban areas are suffering from visual clutter. Variations in the environment are determined by the location of various objects. For example, public transport stations, garbage cans, large panels and stalls. Insensitivity of local administration is another cause for visual pollution. For example poorly planned buildings and transportation systems create visual pollution. The increase in high-rise buildings brings negative change to the visual and physical characteristics of a city, which reduces the readability of the city and destroys natural environments.

Artificial cellphone towers are deceiving to the eye

Advertising is a mirror and shaper of public outlook, social behaviors and standards. A frequent criticism against advertising is that there is too much of it. However, with the introduction of new communication technologies the fragmentation and incentive nature of advertising methods will improve, reducing clutter. Thus, with the increase of mobile device usage, more money goes to advertising on social media websites and mobile apps. Vandalism, in the form of graffiti is defined as street markings, offensive and inappropriate messages made without the owner’s consent. Graffiti adds to visual clutter as it disturbs the view. Billboards are another example of excessive advertising. This form of visual pollution has been alleged to distract drivers, corrupt public taste, boost the infinite need of consumption and clutter the land.

Natural Radiation Cycle

             Part 4 - The Mystery Child

In a workshop for adult leaders, the instructor asked the participants to draw on the blackboard a beautiful house, a dream house ideal to live in and raise a family. It was of course, an exercise, which in the minds of the participants was as easy as copying a model from experience and memory. Besides it is a universal dream to own such a house, and its concept allows free interplay of both reason and imagination.

The participants formed a queue to allow everyone to contribute his own idea on the blackboard The first person in the queue drew the posts of the house, on which the succeeding members made the roof and floor. The rest proceeded in making the walls and windows.

On the second round the participants added garage, porch, veranda, staircase, gate, fence, swimming pool, TV antennae, and other amenities. Finally their dream house was completed and they returned to their seats.

A lively “sharing session” followed and everyone was happy with the outcome of the exercise, including the teacher.

Just then a child happened to be passing by and saw the drawing of the house on the blackboard. He stopped and entered the classroom. He stood there for a long time looking at the drawing and the teacher approached him and asked what he thought about the drawing. The child said in a mild and soft way,

“But there are no neighbors!”

In the same village there was a similar workshop exercise, but this time the participants were to draw a community. The participants made a queue on the blackboard and after an hour of working together, came up with a beautiful drawing of a community.

There were houses and at the community center were a chapel, school, market, village hall, plaza. Roads and bridges make a network in the village showing people doing their chores. Everything that makes a typical village is in the drawing.
The participants discussed, “What constitute a community,” and everyone was so delighted.

Just then a child was passing by, and when he saw the drawing on the backboard, stopped and entered the classroom. The teacher approached him and asked what he thought about the drawing. The child said in a mild and soft way,

“But there are no trees, no birds;
there are no mountains, fields, river!”

Some days passed since the two workshops. No one seriously bothered to find out who the child was or where he lived. Then the whole village began to search for the child, but they never found him – not in the village, not in the town, not in the capital, and not in any known place.

Who was the child? Everyone who saw him never forgot his kind, beautiful and innocent face. The workshop participants and the whole village pondered on his words which remained a puzzle to them for a long time.

They pondered on the words of this mystery child which became the greatest lessons in ecology:

But there are no neighbors.
But there are no trees, no birds; there are no mountains, no fields, no river.”

Home, Sweet Home with Nature, AVR

Part 5 - "I can not feel."- Computer*

Here is a story of a computer enthusiast, who, like the modern student of today, relies greatly on this electronic gadget, doing his school work so conveniently like downloading data for his assignment. So one day he worked on his assigned topic – love.

He printed the word and set the computer to define for him L-O-V-E. 

Pronto the computer came up with a hundred definitions and in different languages.

Remembering his teacher’s instruction to ask, “How does it feel to be in love?” again he set the computer to respond. And you know what?

After several attempts, the computer printed on its screen in big letters:
“I can not feel.” ~

* The computer has no feeling. It lacks the biological capacity to experience emotions like humans do.  It can only process information based on programmed instructions. Sometimes it may analyze and interpret human emotions from data, but this does not mean the computer itself is experiencing those feelings. AI Overview

                                 

  Part 6 - Quo vadis, Homo?  

Where are we going, humans?

Auguste Rodin's The Thinker

Quo vadis, Homo sapiens? Where is man gong?

A young man who was in love asked the computer, “What is love?”

Whereupon, came a prompt answer – in a number of definitions, technical and literary.

“How does it feel to be in love?” the young man continued. This time the computer did not respond. He entered his query once more, but still there was no response. After several attempts, the computer finally gave up, and printed: I cannot feel.

Spending more time with the computer deprives millions, mostly children, of participating in health promoting games and resistance-building exposure in nature. Our children are no longer children of nature; they are captives of education and media, of malls and cafes.

They like to think that the mind is like the computer, that the more information it acquires the better it is to the person.

This is not so. Not when it pertains to health, not with the ability to arrive at correct decisions, not when and where survival is needed. And not when it comes to matters of love.

And here are our children spending most of their waking hours with an “intelligent” thing in the shape of a box, a thing that has no feeling at all!

Even when the computer can tell us of all kinds of ailments in the world, it cannot comfort us. It cannot cure us. It will only worsen our allergies, our asthma.

It cannot reciprocate our friendship, our love, our compassion. Because a robot is a robot is a robot.

Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life. These are surreptitiously spreading around the world causing many complications, untold sufferings, and death. They turn into pandemic as they merge with other diseases – HIV-AIDS, obesity, diabetes, accidents, are becoming common cases.

The success of human beings and all living things today depends on fitness acquired through Evolution and Adaptation. Evolution refers to the “Survival of the Fittest,” through eons of time; while Adaptation is the ability of organisms to adjust to dynamic changes of the environment.

The Four Attributes of Man

• Homo sapiens “Man the Wise”

• Homo faber "Man the Maker” or “Working Man"

• Homo ludens “Playing Man” or "Sportsman"

• Homo spiritus “Praying Man” or "Reverent"

(Deus faber “God the Creator”) Should Man also play the role of God?

Homo sapiens, the Patient

(From The Men Who Play God by Dr Arturo B Rotor)

“Of all God’s creatures, there is no species more guilt-ridden, confused and self-destructive than man. Fear, remorse and frustration underlie his basic behavior probably as a result of his forbears having been driven out of the Garden of Eden…”

“Man kills not for food, he eats when he is not hungry, he mates in and out of season. His suicidal tendencies are unique. While the lemmings drown themselves as a result of reduced food supplies, man will willingly cultivate cancer of his lungs by smoking poisonous plants, convert his liver into a hobnailed atrophic mass of dead tissues with alcohol, or remove himself from the control of his mind with narcotics…

“An important feature of his personality is that the more developed the creature and the more successful, the more likely is he to suffer of neurosis.” The genes bearing these characteristics have not been identified, but seems to be transmitted paternally and maternally.

“While among all other species, infection heads mortality and morbidity lists, among Homo sapiens, neurosis is the underlying cause of ninety percent of all illnesses.”

"As a matter of fact, in the big cities and centers of population, the archetype of the successful executive in the hypertensive, the ulcer-patient, the tranquilizer-dependent. We believe that for an in-depth study of tension or anxiety, in all its typical and atypical manifestations, man is a better subject to study than any other organism.

ANNEX - Transactive memory

Transactive memory is defined as “the ability of a group to have a memory system exceeding that of the individuals in the group”. It refers to the way in which teams of people in businesses, organizations, communities, or other collaborative groups develop a system of joint memory and combined knowledge. These groups are usually composed of individuals who each have their own knowledge concerning a specific area of expertise. This expanded capacity for knowledge storage and recall makes it possible to improve group performance and achieve goals that an individual generally could not on their own.