13.7 Billion Years

Purity Month | Pure Insanity

2012-02-16T00:01:00.020-05:00

"Too much sanity may be madness." -- Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Tanner Foust, a stunt driver of the car chase scenes in the upcoming spy thriller "The Bourne Legacy," currently being filmed in the streets of Manila, recently called the infamously chaotic traffic of the Philippine capital "pure insanity."

Last month, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Tony Norman called efforts to sanitize Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "pure insanity."

Earlier this month, the blog Giant-Size Nerd-Thing described a Lego sorting machine, itself made out of Legos, as "pure insanity."

And you don't need to be a basketball fan to get a little caught up in the pure "Lin-sanity" that has swept the world, thanks to the unbelievable, out-of-the-blue, record-shattering playmaking of the newly-minted Knick point guard, Jeremy Lin. Even the Chinese government has rejiggered their television programming schedule to make sure its citizens get a chance to watch the overnight superstar in action.

The phrase "pure insanity" is so common that a visitor from another planet would think sanity were in short supply on Earth. In many ways, they'd be right. But medically speaking, what exactly is pure insanity?

In fact, sanity and insanity lie on a wide-ranging spectrum of behaviors. "During a schizophrenic break," writes Aaron Reina in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, "one moves between the spectrum of sanity and insanity and is gradually pulled from the clear light of reason to that of madness."

While America's courts often hear insanity pleas, the medical profession generally avoids the word "insanity" in favor of the more general term, "psychopathology," or any number of specific mental disorders as codified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Published by the World Health Organization, the ICD organizes mental and behavioral disorders into 10 groups:

1. Organic, including symptomatic, mental disorders
2. Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of psychoactive substances
3. Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders
4. Mood [affective] disorders
5. Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders
6. Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and physical factors
7. Disorders of personality and behaviour in adult persons
8. Mental retardation
9. Disorders of psychological development
10. Behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence

But while the medical community may, in general, embrace these distinctions and definitions, there is no absolute consensus. In his book The Psychology of Self-Esteem, psychologist Nathaniel Branden writes:

"One of the prime tasks of the science of psychology is to provide definitions of mental health and mental illness...But there is no general agreement among psychologists and psychiatrists about the nature of mental health or mental illness -- no generally accepted definitions, no basic standard by which to gauge one psychological state or other.

"Many writers declare that no objective definitions and standards can be established -- that a basic, universally applicable concept of mental health is impossible. They assert that, since behavior which is regarded as healthy or normal in one culture may be regarded as neurotic or aberrated in another, all criteria are a matter of 'cultural bias.'

"The theorists who maintain this position usually insist that the closest one can come to a definition of mental health is: conformity to cultural norms. Thus, they declare that a man is psychologically healthy to the extent that he is 'well-adjusted' to his culture…The obvious questions that such a definition raises, are: What if the values and norms of a given society are irrational? Can mental health consist of being well-adjusted to the irrational? What about Nazi Germany, for instance? Is a cheerful servant of the Nazi state -- who feels serenely and happily at home in his social environment -- an exponent of mental health?"

If insanity even exists, the concept of "pure insanity" would still be debatable. Anyway, if psychologists ever figure it out, it's probably still best to avoid driving in Manila during rush hour; that is, if you don't want to completely lose your mind.

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image: Taft Avenue intersection, EDSA International Entertainment Complex in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines (credit: Storm Crypt, Wikimedia Commons)

Purity Month | Pure Land

2012-02-15T00:01:00.004-05:00

"The pure realm [is] the abode of all buddhas and bodhisattvas, the place of bliss, the place of birth." -- Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé (1813-1899), Tibetan Buddhist lama

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

In Mahayana Buddhism, the celestial realm of Buddha or a Bodhisattva (enlightened being) is known as "pure land," an idea that may have origins in the Uttarakuru, a divine continent that existed in the cosmology of ancient Dharmic traditions. According to the sutras of Mahayana, there are numerous pure lands, places of enlightenment where time is relative. The most popular pure land is Sukhavati, which means "Land of Bliss."

Want to get to this blissful place? It's accesible to anyone, but only through meditation or sadhana, a mind-based discipline that attempts to achieve a spiritual goal by transcending the ego.

One person who has been there is Jane Tromge. Born in 1946 in Port Arthur, Texas, Tromge worked as a magazine fact-checker and freelance writer in New York City. In the late 1970s, she bought an around-the-world air ticket, ended up in Nepal and met the renowned Buddhist teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. They were married in California in 1979 and she changed her name to Chagdud Khadro. She was ordained as a lama 1997.

In her book P'howa Commentary: Instructions for the Practice of Consciousness Transference as Revealed by Rigzin Longsal Nyingpo, Khadro wrote:

"According to the sutra known as the Rolling of Drums, countless eons ago there was a joyous kingdom whose sovereign had great devotion for the buddha of that time, Lokesvararaja. The king renounced his kingdom, became a monk, and vowed to reach enlightenment. He expressed his bodhicitta intention through forty-eight vows, and promised to refuse buddhahood if any of these vows were not fulfilled. With these words, the earth trembled and flowers rained down from the skies. Praises resounded and with them the prophecy that this monk would surely become a buddha. And so he did, as the Buddha Amitabha.

"In his lifetime as this bodhisattva monk, Amitabha saw that countless pure realms existed for realized ones who had been victorious over the mind's delusions, but no such realm was accessible to those still struggling on the path. Among his forty-eight vows was the aspiration to create a pure realm for all those who heard his name, wished to attain that realm, established the roots of virtue, and dedicated their merit in order to be reborn there. So powerful was his intention that he swore to refuse buddhahood if it did not enable him to manifest such a realm."

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image: Twenty-Five Bodhisattvas Descending from Heaven, Anonymous, c. 1300, Japan, Kamakura period, Pair of hanging scrolls; gold and mineral pigments on silk, Kimbell Art Museum, Wikimedia Commons

Purity Month | An Elephant Mother's Love

2012-02-14T00:01:00.012-05:00

If a mother's love knows no bounds and an elephant never forgets, where does that leave elephant mothers?

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Humans have a tendency to complexify things. Take love. The ancient Greeks had several words to describe it: agape (unconditonal love), eros (passionate love), philia (friendship) and storge (affection). The Japanese have the word "ai" for a giving type of love and "koi" for a wanting type of love. In Arabic, love to a man (ana uhibbuk) is different from love to a woman (ana bahibbik).

But of all the different kinds of love that we've identified and categorized, there is perhaps no stronger love than the kind a mother feels for her child. Insomuch as a child is the physical extension of a mother's own body, mother-to-child love can be viewed as a selfish kind of love, i.e., self-love. In this regard, it is the most unique kind of love. Fathers don't have this internalized physical relationship to their offspring. Yet, for better or worse, human mothers are still human, and thus susceptible to all the human foibles that go along with love.

To see pure love in action, without the distinctions and strings that humans so often attach to it, look to the non-human animal world, and in particular, elephants. These highly intelligent animals have language, ritual and strong familial bonds. Love in the form of caregiving is an important part of their lives.

Yesterday, India TV News reported on the death of an elephant calf, who was electrocuted by a live wire near a sugarcane field in Odisha, India. The weeping mother elephant was guarding her dead child for days. Heartbreaking, gut-wrenching and painfully real, this may be love in its purest form.

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image: Mother elephant guards body of dead calf, Odisha, India (India TV News)

Purity Month | Februa

2012-02-13T00:01:00.016-05:00

"Rare is the union of beauty and purity." -- Juvenal, 1st century Roman poet

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

In ancient Rome, today was the beginning of Februa, a three-day festival, possibly of Sabine origin, marked by purification and fertility rituals. In the Roman calendar, February was the last month of the year and also the beginning of spring. Thus, the sense of "spring cleaning" emerges with this festival.

According to the Roman poet Ovid, the Latin word februa ("the means of purification") is derived from the older Etruscan word purgamentum, meaning "purging." The Roman god Februus, named after the month, was the personification of purification.

Februa was later incorporated into Lupercalia, a pastoral fertility and purification festival meant to purify the city by banishing evil spirits, associated with the god of shepherds Lupercus ("he who wards off the wolf').

After Lupercalia's fertility rites were conducted, men drew the names of women from a jar to determine partners for the rest of the celebration. Because of this romantic partnering, Lupercalia is often seen as an early version of Valentine's Day.

In the 5th century, however, pagan customs began their decline as Christianity took hold in Rome. Eventually, these rituals would no longer be observed.

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image: The Roman Baths (Thermae) of Bath Spa, England (credit: Diliff, Wikimedia Commons)

Purity Month | Lake Vostok

2012-02-10T00:01:00.019-05:00

"The discovery of this lake is comparable to the first space flight in its technological complexity, its importance and its uniqueness." -- Valery Lukin, head of the Russian Antarctic expedition that has penetrated the waters of the ancient subglacial Lake Vostok

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

It took more than a decade of drilling through almost 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of rock-solid ice, but Russian scientists have finally broken through and reached what they were looking for: Lake Vostok, a massive freshwater lake that hasn't been exposed to sunlight or air for a period of 15 to 34 million years. It is believed that the lake, which has been perfectly preserved by a hydrostatic seal created by the polar ice cap, may contain life forms that existed before the Ice Age. If there is an ecosystem on Earth that has maintained its environmental purity through several epochs of geological time, Lake Vostok is it.

Ice in Antarctica appeared some 35 million years ago, around the time that many modern mammals appeared. If life is found in Vostok, it raises the possibility that life can survive in the icy water on Europa, a moon of Jupiter that is believed to have a deep ocean of liquid water under its solid ice surface.

400,000-year-old samples from a more shallow section of the ice core above Vostok revealed colonies of microorganisms adapted to the cold temperatures. These bacteria derive their energy from the minerals in the water and are similar to those organisms found near hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, which are believed to be possible sites for the origin of life on Earth. Vostok's water remains liquid due to the geothermal heat and pressure emanating from the planet's superhot interior.

One of the challenges for the Russian scientists has been how to maintain the purity of this ancient ecosystem. There is great concern about contaminating subglacial lakes with foreign debris and drilling fluid from the drilling process.

To prevent this from happening, the scientists plugged the bottom of the bore hole with Freon, an inert fluid, and then drilled the final few meters with a hot-water drill instead of a motorized drill coated in kerosene (used as an anti-freeze). When the lake was reached, water flowed up into the bore hole, then froze and formed an ice plug. The scientists contend that the possibility that any foreign material went into the lake is low.

Still, some remain concerned that the samples that the Russian team takes from the lake may become contaminated because the clean technology that was used at the bottom of the borehole is not being used in the upper section near the surface.

"This isn't the first time science has been in a position to learn a tremendous amount about a new environment but at the same time, risked contaminating exactly what was being studied," says CBC science correspondent Bob McDonald. "Just look at the tons of equipment left scattered all over the moon. At least the robotic landers sent to Mars are baked before leaving Earth to get rid of microbes."

For now, the Russian project is on hold, as the work can only be done during the warmer summer months of the southern hemisphere, from November to February. Hopefully when the team returns next season, they will have a more stringent plan to ensure the purity of all the samples they retrieve. The United States and the United Kingdom have similar projects that are scheduled to penetrate two other subglacial lakes under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet next year.

McDonald also brings up the fact that there is another viewpoint to consider. "If new forms of life are found down there and the water is contaminated," he notes, "that life will have to deal with what to them would be an alien invasion by humans."

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image: An artist's cross-section of Lake Vostok, the largest known subglacial lake in Antarctica. Liquid water is thought to take thousands of years to pass through the lake, which is the size of North America's Lake Ontario. (Nicolle Rager-Fuller/NSF)

Purity Month | In Defense of Impurity

2012-02-09T00:01:00.016-05:00

"This is the poetry we are seeking, corroded, as if by acid, by the labors of man's hand, pervaded by sweat and smoke, reeking of urine and of lillies soiled." -- Pablo Neruda

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

In her 1962 poem "Fever 103°," Sylvia Plath asked, "Pure? What does it mean?" For centuries, poets and writers have spilled much ink answering that very question, extolling the virtues of purity and often connecting it to the nature of love.

In his 1663 poem "Air and Angels," John Dunne suggested that the difference between a woman's love and a man's love is comparable to the difference between air and "an angel's purity." Lord Byron took note of the "light of love, the purity of grace / The mind, the music breathing from her face" in his 1813 poem "The Bride of Abydos." A few years later, William Wordsworth gave tribute to the Virgin Mary, praising a "mother's love with maiden purity" in his 1821 poem, "The Virgin."

But modernists, writing in a coal-blackened post-industrial era wracked by world wars and the rise of filthy and alienating metropolises, offered a much more bleak, pessimistic view. In his 1917 poem "Dulce et Decorum Est," Wilfred Owen, considered the greatest English poet of World War I, wrote, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge."

Virginia Woolf, in her 1923 essay "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," declared that "on or about December, 1910, human character changed." This statement, according to the Academy of American Poets, "testifies to the modern writer's fervent desire to break with the past, rejecting literary traditions that seemed outmoded and diction that seemed too genteel to suit an era of technological breakthroughs and global violence."[1]

The gallant approach to purity—and even purity itself—receded into the annals of history. Some modernists tried to come to its rescue, throwing it a line in the form of art that was extraordinarily refined and more than a little affected. In his book After the Great Divide, Andreas Huyssens wrote, "Modernists such as T.S. Eliot and Ortega y Gasset emphasized time and again that it was their mission to salvage the purity of high art from the encroachments of urbanization, massification, technological modernization, in short, of modern mass culture."[2]

But as we well know, purity, once lost, is difficult or impossible to regain. And while there is much to love about purity, there is just as much or perhaps even more to love in its dirty twin. In 1935, Pablo Neruda presented a defense of impurity in poetry in "Sobre una poesia sin pureza" ("On a Poetry without Purity," later translated as "Some Thoughts on Impure Poetry"):

"It is worth one's while, at certain hours of the day or night, to scrutinize useful objects in repose: wheels that have rolled across long, dusty distances with their enourmous loads of crops or ore, charcoal sacks, barrels, baskets, the hafts and handles of carpenters' tools. The contacts these objects have had with man and earth may serve as a valuable lesson to a tortured lyric poet. Worn surfaces, the wear inflicted by human hands, the sometimes tragic, always pathetic, emanations from these objects give reality a magnetism that should not be scorned.

"Man's nebulous impurity can be perceived in them: the affinity for groups, the use and obsolescence of materials, the mark of a hand or a foot, the constancy of the human presence that permeates every surface.

"This is the poetry we are seeking, corroded, as if by acid, by the labors of man's hand, pervaded by sweat and smoke, reeking of urine and of lillies soiled by diverse professions in and outside the law.

"A poetry as impure as a suit or a body, a poetry stained by food and shame, a poetry with wrinkles, observations, dreams, waking, prophecies, declaration of love and hatred, beasts, blows, idylls, manifestos, denials, doubts, affirmations, taxes.

The sacred law of the madrigal and the decrees of touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing, the desire for justice and sexual desire, the sound of the ocean, nothing deliberately excluded, a plunge into unplumbed depths in an access of ungovernable love. And the poetic product will be stamped with digital doves, with the scars of teeth and ice, a poetry slightly consumed by sweat and war. Until one achieves a surface worn as smooth as a constantly played instrument, the hard softness of rubbed wood, or arrogant iron. Flowers, wheat, and water also have that special consistency, the same tactile majesty. But we must not overlook melancholy, the sentimentalism of another age, the perfect impure fruit whose marvels have been cast aside by the mania for pedantry: moonlight, the swan at dusk, 'my beloved,' are, beyond question, the elemental and essential matter of poetry. He who would flee from bad taste is riding for a fall."

NOTES

[1] Academy of American Poets. A brief guide to modernism. January 1, 2001. Accessed February 9, 2012.
[2] Huyssen, Andreas. After the great divide: modernism, mass culture, postmodernism (theories of representation and difference). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987. 163.

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image: ohm 17, Flickr Creative Commons

Purity Month | Reinheitsgebot

2012-02-08T00:01:00.011-05:00

"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder." -- Kinky Friedman

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Seventy miles north of Munich, straddling the Danube River in the German state of Bavaria, is Ingolstadt, a city of some 125,000 people that is considered to be the youngest population in the nation. Perhaps it is because that Ingolstadt is the home of the first Bavarian university. But it also could be that the city is the birthplace of Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law. And as we well know, college students like their beer. And so does Germany, known for making what many believe is the best beer in the world.

Reinheitsgebot, also known as the Bavarian Purity Law, was passed in Ingolstadt on April 23, 1516. And while it is no longer in effect, breweries in Germany and around the world still abide by the rule. It is considered to be the oldest consumer protection law in the world.

The only ingredients that were allowed were barley, hops and water. Notably, yeast was absent from the recipe: It would not be until the mid-19th century when Louis Pasteur discovered the role that microorganisms play in the fermentation process.

The English translation of Reinheitsgebot (provided by Brewery.com):

"We hereby proclaim and decree, by Authority of our Province, that henceforth in the Duchy of Bavaria, in the country as well as in the cities and marketplaces, the following rules apply to the sale of beer:
"From Michaelmas to Georgi, the price for one Mass [Bavarian Liter 1,069] or one Kopf [bowl-shaped container for fluids, not quite one Mass], is not to exceed one Pfennig Munich value, and

"From Georgi to Michaelmas, the Mass shall not be sold for more than two Pfennig of the same value, the Kopf not more than three Heller [Heller is usually one-half Pfennig].

"If this not be adhered to, the punishment stated below shall be administered.

"Should any person brew, or otherwise have, other beer than March beer, it is not to be sold any higher than one Pfennig per Mass.

"Furthermore, we wish to emphasize that in future in all cities, markets and in the country, the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water. Whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance, shall be punished by the Court authorities' confiscating such barrels of beer, without fail.

"Should, however, an innkeeper in the country, city or markets buy two or three pails of beer (containing 60 Mass) and sell it again to the common peasantry, he alone shall be permitted to charge one Heller more for the Mass of the Kopf, than mentioned above. Furthermore, should there arise a scarcity and subsequent price increase of the barley (also considering that the times of harvest differ, due to location), WE, the Bavarian Duchy, shall have the right to order curtailments for the good of all concerned."

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image: The caption says, "Preparations for the Kaiser's birthday celebration at the front. Beer delivered from home is unloaded." On the left-hand inset, "Zensiert" means "censored." Circa 1915-1918. Courtesy New York Public Library.

Purity Month | Pure Water

2012-02-07T00:01:00.012-05:00

"I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it." -- W. C. Fields

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Pure water is tasteless and odorless. But the water we drink is rarely pure. The water from the tap contains a variety of things that aren't either hydrogen or oxygen molecules. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permits a number of pollutants in America's drinking water that are deemed harmless in minute quantities.

For example, 5 percent of water samples taken from the public drinking water supply are allowed to contain coliforms, bacteria that are naturally present in the environment and human feces. The EPA notes that coliforms in this concentration are not a health threat and are "used to indicate whether other potentially harmful bacteria may be present."

Minute quantities of disinfection by-products are permitted in the drinking water, such as bromate, chlorite, haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes. In larger quantities, these chemicals cause a variety of health problems, including anemia, increased risk of cancer and liver, kidney and central nervous dysfunction.

Many inorganic chemicals are also allowed in tiny quanities, including antimony, arsenic, asbestos, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, cyanide, fluoride, lead, mercury, nitrate, nitrite, selenium and thalium. Organic chemicals that can be present include atrazine, benzene, endrine, glyphosate, styrene and toxaphene.

Bottled spring water is never pure water. It contains chemicals commonly found in natural springs, such as magnesium, calcium and potassium. But it can also contain groundwater pollutants such as phthalates (found near waste dumps), agrochemicals (found near farms) and steroidal hormones (given to factory farm animals).

But even if bottled spring water -- or any bottled water -- claims to be pollutant-free, it's hard to really know the truth. According to a 2011 study conducted by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG), more than half of the 173 bottled water brands surveyed flunked their transparency test. EWG’s 2009 label survey found that "only two of 188 bottled water brands provided the three most basic facts about their water -- source name and location, treatment and purity."

"Many brands fill their labels with vague claims of a pristine source or perfect purity -- but no real facts," according to EWG. "If people are willing to pay up 1,900 times the cost of tap water in order to buy water in a plastic bottle, they deserve better than that."

So, what does EWG recommend? Filtered tap water.

Plus, dropping the bottled water habit has another great side effect—less plastic waste. Plastic bottles can take up to 450 years to decompose. But before than happens, pieces of it end up eaten by fish, birds and marine mammals. Plastic trash kills millions of animals every year.

According to Scientific American, approximately 2 million plastic bottles are discarded every five minutes in the United States. Much of the world's plastic waste ends up in the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a swirling vortex of —including 100 million tons of plastic—in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of the continental United States, where it kills wildlife and devastates marine ecosystems.

In the end, drinking water out of a plastic bottle is one of the more impure things we can do in terms of the environment.

ACTION ALERTS

Take the "Rise Above Plastics" Pledge (Surfrider Foundation)
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Of Rice and Men: Cooking the world's most important grain for human nutrition
21 Days, 21 Reasons, 21 Recipes, 21 Quotes: Eating plants, loving animals
Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

image: cheltenhamborough, Flickr Creative Commons

Purity Month | The Purebred Paradox

2012-02-06T00:01:00.008-05:00

"An MRI revealed the painful truth about the Cavalier King Charles spaniel Pfeiffer had bought at a pet store: At less than a year old, Daisy had syringomyelia, a condition in which fluid-filled cavities occur within the spinal cord near the brain." -- Carrie Allan, All Animals Magazine

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Purebred animals are always in high demand, none more so perhaps than dogs. But this is one instance where purity is bad thing.

"The main problem with purebreds stems from the simple fact that to create a purebred puppy you need two dogs from the exact same gene pool," according to PetMD.com. "This gene pool is already limited, but many breeders will use dogs from the same family gene pool to create more dogs (inbreeding). Dog clubs often require that their dogs be bred within the same club, which again ends up severely limiting the gene pool variety. As many of these gene pools are limited or closed, the risk of genetic defects rises significantly with each successive coupling."

"Though the dogs who compete at Westminster [Kennel Club Dog Show] are beautiful and most are likely healthy, the rise of such spectacles—and judging measures that in some cases emphasize appearance over welfare—has been blamed for a host of genetic health problems facing scores of breeds today," writes Carrie Allan in an article entitled "The Purebred Paradox" in the magazine All Animals, published by the Humane Society of the United States.

"Brachycephalic (or short-faced) breeds like bulldogs and pugs suffer from breathing problems; Great Danes and other large dogs from joint problems; long dogs like dachshunds and basset hounds from back problems; wrinkly-faced dogs like boxers and shar-peis from skin and eye problems. And due to prolific production to meet public demand, the most coveted dogs tend to have the most genetic disorders; Labrador retrievers, who’ve topped the AKC’s popularity list for 19 years, are prone to around 50 inherited conditions."

Also, social aggression is more common in purebreds than in mixed breeds, according to the ASPCA.

Thinking about becoming a dog guardian? If you stay away from puppies sold at pet stores, you won't be supporting cruel puppy mills. Go to your municipal dog pound or shelter. Save a mixed-breed (i.e., a mutt) from death row. Society has placed a greater value on purebreds than mixed breeds. In fact, ethically and medically speaking, the reverse should be the case.

ACTION ALERTS

Save the Great Bear Rainforest and First Nation rights, say NO to Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline (Petition Online Canada)
Say NO to cruel "horse diving" in Atlantic City (Change.org)
Say NO to the senseless killing of wolves in Idaho (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to efforts to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic under the ruse of funding the Transportation Bill (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to the rhino horn trade (Change.org)
Say NO to Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, which threatens the boreal forest in British Columbia (Nature Canada)
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

image: Cavalier King Charles spaniel (credit: kookykrys, Flickr Creative Commons)

Purity Month | Something Funny Happened on the Way Home from the Mikvah

2012-02-03T00:01:00.015-05:00

For Jewish women in medieval times, meeting a dog or a donkey after bathing spelled trouble

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Humans aren't the only species that likes to be clean. Almost all animals clean and groom themselves and each other, removing foreign objects such as insects, parasites and dirt for health and hygiene reasons.

But humans are the only species to have formed irrational concepts about cleanliness, and many of them can be found in religion. In Judaism, for example, there are two forms of ritual ablution: a netilat yadayim, or washing one's hands with a cup, and tevilah, a full-body immersion in a mikvah, which literally means a "collection of water."

According to the medieval Talmudist and mystic Eleazar of Worms (c. 1176–1238), women should be "especially thorough" in the mikvah. "On their way home, they should cover their eyes so as not to see anything impure. If a woman comes across a dog after she has bathed, she will give birth to ugly children when she sleeps with her husband. And if she meets a donkey, they will be stupid."[1]

For a rational model of cleanliness, stay away from religious mystics and take a look at the humble ant, considered to be one of the cleanest animals in the world. In their book The Life of the Ant, Maurice Maeterlinck and Bernard Miall write, "The ant has a perfect mania for cleanliness, and with the assistance of her companions she combs and rubs and polishes herself twenty times a day." Ants also keep their homes immaculately clean and maintain personal toilets.

The Bible even has something to say about this industrious little insect. Proverbs 6:6 offers the following advice: "Go to the ant, you lazy one; consider her ways and become wise." Indeed, we can learn a lot not only from the ant, but from all non-human animals. After all, the only stupid thing about meeting a donkey on the way home from a bath is thinking that you'll give birth to stupid kids because of it.

ACTION ALERTS

Say NO to cruel "horse diving" in Atlantic City (Change.org)
Say NO to the senseless killing of wolves in Idaho (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to efforts to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic under the ruse of funding the Transportation Bill (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to the rhino horn trade (Change.org)
Say NO to Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, which threatens the boreal forest in British Columbia (Nature Canada)
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Of Rice and Men: Cooking the world's most important grain for human nutrition
21 Days, 21 Reasons, 21 Recipes, 21 Quotes: Eating plants, loving animals
Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

NOTES
[1] DFG Science TV. Purification Rituals in Mediaeval Judaism. August 13. 2011.

image: Judenbad mikvah in Speyer, first mentioned in the year 1128. The bath was forgotten and built over, and only recently re-discovered and made accessible to the public. This is one of the best preserved medieval mikvaot. (credit: Chris73, Wikimedia Commons)

Purity Month | The Power of Sand, Purified by Nature

2012-02-02T00:01:00.018-05:00

"To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour." -- William Blake (1757–1827), Auguries of Innocence

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus of Purity Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

Every time we use an electronic device, we are tapping into the power of sand. But that sand exists in the form of a silicon chip, a tiny crystal of almost pure silicon less than one centimeter square and around half a millimeter thick. In this miniature world are millions of electricity-conducting transistors that give the chip the ability to execute a wide variety of electronic functions, from turning the TV on through a remote control to keeping the digital clock on the microwave ticking.

According to Michael Welland, the author of Sand: A Journey Through Science and the Imagination, "The common source of silica for manufacturing the high-purity grades of silicon used for, among other things, silicon chips is not loose, unconsolidated sand from a beach or river sandbank, but sand that has already been ultrapurified by nature: quartzite."

"Quartzite is a rock that was originally a silica sandstone; it has been so deeply buried in the Earth’s crust, cooked by such high temperatures and pressures, that many of the impurities have been distilled out and the sand grains completely annealed and welded together," writes Welland. "Hit quartzite with a hammer and it rings like a bell because of its hardness, purity, and uniformity. Hit it hard enough and it breaks across the ghosts of the grains, not around them."

The English poet William Blake was correct in suggesting that one could see the world in a grain of sand: Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust after oxygen. You can see other worlds as well: By mass, silicon is the eighth most common element in the universe.

From the planetary-scale movements of the Earth's lithosphere to the tiny electric signals pulsating through an integrated circuit, the transformation (and purification) of sand into silicon chips is a voyage of epic proportions—and a dramatic change in scale. It has been said that you can hear the ocean inside a seashell. And in a sense, every time we talk into a cellphone, we've got a little sand in our ear.

ACTION ALERTS

Say NO to the senseless killing of wolves in Idaho (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to efforts to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic under the ruse of funding the Transportation Bill (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to the rhino horn trade (Change.org)
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Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

image: Sand dunes near Ideles, Algeria (credit: Florence Devouard, Wikimedia Commons)

Purity Month | Orthorexia Nervosa

2012-02-01T00:01:00.019-05:00

"I'm as pure as the driven slush." -- Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968), American actress

[February was named after the Latin term februum, meaning purification. Februa, or Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification based on washing or cleaning, held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. From purification rituals throughout history to the importance of pure substances in science and technology, from the issues surrounding ecosystem purity to the growing interest in pure foods, the concept of purity in its various forms is the focus this month on 13.7 Billion Years. Have a suggestion? Send an email to 13.7billion@gmail.com.]

The silver screen star Tallulah Bankhead was a notorious party girl, known for being able to drink an entire bottle of bourbon in under half an hour. She once told a friend that she had been advised by her doctor to fight off every urge to drink by eating an apple.

Suffice it to say, Bankhead was not suffering from "orthorexia nervosa," a term coined by Dr. Steven Bratman, author of the book Health Food Junkies. He describes the condition as "an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food." The term comes from the Greek word ortho, meaning right or correct, and the Latin word nervosa, meaning nervous, and was meant to parallel the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.

"I realize this sounds like an oxymoron," said Bratman on Orthorexia.com. "How can focusing on healthy food be bad for you?"

"The apparent contradiction has led to a great deal of challenge of the concept. But the emphasis is intended to be on 'unhealthy obsession.' One can have an unhealthy obsession with something that is otherwise healthy. Think of exercise addiction, or workaholism. I never intended the expression to apply to anything other than extreme cases of over-focus...At times (but not at all times) orthorexia seems to have elements of OCD. It may also have elements of standard anorexia. But it is often not very much like typical OCD or typical anorexia."

Bratman is also careful to note that he has "never claimed that vegetarianism, veganism, or any other approach to eating healthy food is inherently an eating disorder" and that he "agree[s] that the problem of addiction to junk food is immensely more serious than excessive obsession with healthy food."

"I am definitely seeing significantly more orthorexics than just a few years ago," said Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association's mental health group, in The Guardian. "Other eating disorders focus on quantity of food but orthorexics can be overweight or look normal. They are solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly 'pure'."

It remains to be seen if orthorexia nervosa will be officially accepted by the medical community. For that, it would have to be listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). But most physicians would probably agree that a few more apples wouldn't have been a bad thing for Bankhead, whose last coherent words were "codeine...bourbon."

There's no doubt that she knew how to have fun. "If I had to live my life again," she once said, "I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." Somewhere between orthorexia nervosa and Bankhead's bon vivant lifestyle isn't a bad place to be. Perhaps that state might be called "isorropia aequus," from the Greek word isorropia, meaning "balance," and the Latin word aequus, meaning calm. Now doesn't that glass of organic bourbon taste good?

ACTION ALERTS

Say NO to efforts to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic under the ruse of funding the Transportation Bill (Defenders of Wildlife)
Say NO to the rhino horn trade (Change.org)
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Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

Instead of This, Try This, #22

2012-01-31T00:01:00.005-05:00

[January is Replacement Month on 13.7 Billion Years. Out with the old. In with the new. Twenty-two ways to be a more ethical and healthier consumer.]

Instead of this, try this, because of this and this and this.

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Take the "Rise Above Plastics" Pledge (Surfrider Foundation)
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Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
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Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

Instead of This, Try This, #21

2012-01-30T00:01:00.008-05:00

Tell Indonesia: Stop killing orangutans for palm oil (Change.org)
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Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
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Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

Instead of This, Try This, #20

2012-01-27T00:01:00.005-05:00

Join the 2.3 million people around the globe who have signed the International Declaration of Animal Welfare (AnimalsMatter.org)
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Instead of This, Try This, #19

2012-01-26T00:01:00.005-05:00

Ask Starbucks to sell fair trade coffee (Change.org)
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Instead of This, Try This, #18

2012-01-25T00:01:00.004-05:00

Download the 2012 Sustainable Seafood Suide (Monterey Bay Aquarium)
Ask Congress to protect the bluefin tuna (Oceana)
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Instead of This, Try This, #17

2012-01-24T00:01:00.006-05:00

Say YES to accurate labeling of GMO foods (National Health Federation)
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Instead of This, Try This, #16

2012-01-23T00:01:00.007-05:00

Tell Kmart: Don't sell rainforest destruction (Greenpeace)
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Instead of This, Try This, #15

2012-01-20T00:01:00.004-05:00

Tell Costco to see ethical gold (Change.org)
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Instead of This, Try This, #14

2012-01-19T00:01:00.004-05:00

Say NO to skinning dogs alive in China (Care2)
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Instead of This, Try This, #13

2012-01-18T00:01:00.004-05:00

Take the Dairy Free Diet Challenge
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Instead of This, Try This, #12

2012-01-17T00:01:00.003-05:00

Get a vegan starter kit from Oprah
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Instead of This, Try This, #11

2012-01-16T00:01:00.003-05:00

Get a vegan starter kit from Oprah
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Victory Month: Celebrating positive change through grassroots action
Of Rice and Men: Cooking the world's most important grain for human nutrition
21 Days, 21 Reasons, 21 Recipes, 21 Quotes: Eating plants, loving animals
Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

Instead of This, Try This, #10

2012-01-13T00:01:00.007-05:00

Tell the Senate the bikes have a right to the road, say no to the mandatory sidepath law (League of American Bicyclists)
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PAST SERIES

Victory Month: Celebrating positive change through grassroots action
Of Rice and Men: Cooking the world's most important grain for human nutrition
21 Days, 21 Reasons, 21 Recipes, 21 Quotes: Eating plants, loving animals
Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
Deep Space: Staring at the stars
Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
Reports from 2050: Imagining the future