According to Japanese myth “good fortune follows a child conceived under the fiery plasma emanating from the Earth’s magnetosphere.” On the other hand western scientists and theologians might argue that it is not possible to know the precise correlation between “expelling billions of electrons funnelling to and from a pole,” and mitosis, immersed in a field of magnetically charged particles under the Aurora Borealis.

A peaceful place, calm and harmonious, where the energy of the planet is as vibrant and subtle as the stars flickering  through the  aqua red  sky of the northern lights, an ideal place to think about philosophy, religion or contemplate the breath of Japanese myth and the Ho Ho Ho of Old St. Nick.

Unfortunately, busy professionals are often unable to travel to the Arctic regions to find the northern lights to breed a child of good fortune. For them, a unique solution has been devised to bring the lights to their location by thinkgeek.com called the Aurora Projector. “This unique object uses three colored LED’s and a frosted lenses to simulate the ice of the northern region that is now melting due to global warming from the products of the industrial revolution,  to project twisting swirling misty lights on your wall or ceiling. Four triple-a batteries power it for up to 20 hours to avoid any interruptions in a thoughtful conception. The controls are simple to master - On, Off, and  a Timer  which  shuts it off after 30, 60, 90 and  120 minutes, especially thoughtful  for those who are in the geriatric age range. Plus, the lamp is hinged, so if you are concerned about straining your neck muscles or pinching the wrong nerve to stare at the light show on the ceiling, you can tilt it vertically, and project the pretty colorful lights on the wall instead. The size of the contraption: H13 x W18.5 x D11 cm. The 4 AA batteries it takes to run this thing are not included and it doesn’t appear to have any plug in components.”

Now for the right yen and $39.00 you too can conceive a child of good fortune that will make parenting as easy as baking a souffle.

During the Roman Empire, a group of large carp like fish known as genus Barbus were domesticated in marble tanks under the bed of guests invited to lavish Roman Orgies  signifying their fascination with underwater life that led to aquariums. But, it wasn’t known until much later that goldfish like others in the Carp family are social animals who frequently become bored with their environment when left alone without other fish to interact. For them, a stark, un-embellished bowl of water just wont do because their inclination when happy is to be curious. In fact this quality is believed to have encouraged the development of elaborate fish tank rock formations, miniature sunken ships and the R2 Fish Training Kit. which made Albert the goldfish pictured above a member of the Guinness Book Of Records as the fish with the largest repertoire of tricks of any aquatic vertebrate with scales.

According to historical records, The concept of fish school, not to be confused with a school of fish was first founded by Dean and Kyle Pomerleau in 2004. Kyle who was seven years old at the time won two common goldfish at a school fair spending hours watching them for several weeks. He suspected that there was more going on in their brains then most people were willing to give them credit for. On a whim, he and his father decided to see if it was possible to train fish to do tricks using techniques frequently associated with  training dogs, cats, and circus animals.

In an attempt to give fish their just due as responsive pets rather than some kind of decoration at risk for being flushed down the toilet or eaten by a house cat, their scientific investigation led to the Fish School Training Manual, initially written in French. The basic principles set forth in the pamphlet are positive reinforcement and shaping which uses the fish’s innate curiosity to encourage behavior modification. After all, Kyle  claimed,  “Fish have often been served in various cultures as religious symbols, deities and the subject of art, books and films such as The Incredible Mr. Limpit,” a 1964 live action/animated film by Warner Brothers about a human who mysteriously turns into a talking fish and helps the US Navy defeat the Nazis using his “thrum,” an intense  noise that disrupts underwater  instruments and weapons long before Finding Nemo won the Oscar as best animated feature in 2005.

It was the ancient ones who first recognized the nature of cycles,  passing down the knowledge, gifted in written text and oral traditions to the chosen of each generation to keep records of what was meant. The task for them was to create an atmosphere where harmony exists without interfering with choice.

The ancient ones were aware that cosmic forces are immense and subtle, remaining invisible until sensitivity to them is developed much as knowledge is often hidden among the clutter of pointless facts noticed before a truth is revealed.  On the other hand they contended that “nothing is useless as long as its appropriately prioritized.” An approach no different than subjecting students to a multiple choice test who are given more information then they need to choose the correct answer, a way of encouraging the development of  knowledge by also sharpening the ability to use a sound process of elimination (guessing).

Who the ancient ones were is less important than what they said about the universe describing it as “a lot of space with ‘things’ suspended within, in constant motion  as everything moves in relation to their previous position and/or mutual gravitational effects on each other.” They were aware of the closest and farthest currents although they attracted less attention by being silent and occasionally leaving inspiring hints along the way, sometimes misinterpreted, becoming the basis for cults.

According to them, the universe could be interpreted as a conduit for the cosmic pulse, while the veil is defined as “anything that is not known,” frequently misunderstood as a symbol for whatever prevents revelation, neglecting to consider its dual purpose as a protection from the knowledge one is not ready to receive. They indicated, “the ability to verify existence or calculate cycles is not necessary to understand the imperceptible.”  Only a rudimentary comprehension of mathematics is important as one silently listens to the cosmic breadth and reads the poetry of light, sound and motion.

Fragments of fable and myth  have been passed down revealing some things about the first ancient one, said to have been born in a small town in the Himalayan Mountains.  Originally the youth, like the other men of the village, was a peaceful farmer. However, an elder villager held in great respect somehow gained certain  knowledge which he shared with the one who later became the first of the ancients. Both began exploring the secrets of the universe learning how to harness cosmic energy for their own uses, although their motives were quite different. While the elder focused on  building a vast empire, the youth wished to use it for the benefit of his fellow villagers. A great struggle ensued between the two, symbolic of the battle between selfishness and selflessness, as  the legacy of the ancient ones remains a contemporary theme about power.

Another reminder of cycles are found in  remnants of The Mayan civilization, which constructed the most mathematically accurate calender ever devised, informed with future astronomical events which influenced their culture along with paganism and human sacrifice. Survival they realized depended on planting crops at the right time and understanding the forces that effected their growth much of which involved cycles of climatic regularity and change. They found ways to ensure a continuation of their society until they vanished, leaving only mystery and myth for scientists to fathom, although their calender and some written hieroglyphs remain.

The Mayan calender calculates the end of one cycle and the beginning of another at 11:11 am GMT on December 21, 2012.  All they contended was that the transformation from one to another would be characterized by “great changes,” as the Sun and its planets approach the center of the galaxy, an event that occurs once in twenty eight thousand years.

What happens after this date is unwritten suggesting that it must be left to those who are now alive to determine the shape and intensity of the change.

Suppose it were possible to make scrambled eggs without beating them first - perhaps a trivial concern - but when was the last time you cracked an egg without paying attention to what you were doing? It doesn’t really matter where the egg is struck, as long as it contains no shell.

Every now and then a double yolk appears and those become unusual events, especially when children are looking on, eagerly absorbing everything with awe struck attentiveness. To them it’s a magical event and how they interpret what they see can shape their personality and define the approach they will take to life. This may sound like a hefty claim, but each time an egg is successfully transformed into an omelet, it builds confidence, a celebration when it enhances the ability to focus, especially for children and multi-taskers who revel in cracking two, in both hands at the same time.

Creating a batter in a bowl is a rote expenditure of energy. Another approach would be to open the eggs directly into the heated pan, then using a fork, mixing the yolks and the whites together when they are in the process of solidifying, creating a unique variation of color and texture, as a small amount of milk or cream for the aristocrats is added with salt and pepper. This encourages risk-taking, an absorbing adventure each and every time the task is undertaken. Most important is not having to scrape them from the pan. An assurance of an experienced knowing hand, especially when one of the kids asks: “Why are some eggs white, and some brown?” Then a learner-ed parent can respond with a smile, “They can also be green.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_shells

In Hinduism, Avatar is a  Sanskrit word referring to the conscious descent of a deity from heaven to earth often translated into English as “incarnation,” but a  more appropriate term is “manifestation.” Its meaning is the basis of James Cameron’s visual epic that took fourteen years to complete depicting native life of Pandora, a planet that takes several years to reach in suspended animation. The film is an artistically stunning adventure in 3D worth seeing  even if the story, written in two weeks, is a bit derivative with a  screenplay that borrows heavily from some of the directors previous work and brings to mind too many similarities to Dances With Wolves.

The military look of the film is so reminiscent of  Aliens that it distracted me from  becoming immersed in the film. Aliens is the 1986 classic that Cameron directed about the bugs that gestate in the chest of its living host and have acid for blood. As in Aliens, the company or corporation features prominently as the prime antagonist of evil instigating  the invasion force that plans to drain Pandora’s natural resources for the benefit of Earth. Our planet is now an ecologically depleted waste land, a victim of economic greed that Weavers character, Dr. Grace Augustine, a Bio-Anthropologist opposes as passionately as she did as Ellen Ripley in Aliens.

The feel of the film’s technology including a cargo loader machine similar to the one Ripley uses to defeat the queen bug at the end of Aliens is featured in facsimile in a major battle scene at the end of Avatar. This similarity is an annoying element of this new film which was written, directed and produced by Cameron with a running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Although the 3D nature of the films construction is groundbreaking, the plot is predictable and the characters are too two dimensional drawing  heavily from other science fiction/ fantasy films. The premise that all living things emanate a common energy also known as “the force”  fills everything in the universe is perhaps a reference to the  Star Wars universe , not that there is anything wrong with imitation, but even the forests of Pandora,  a magical place  with luminescent creatures and large revered trees  evokes the image of Lothlorien the mystical home  of the elves of Middle Earth. Add to all this the notion of cloning a personal avatar and a neural link, then  Alien Resurrection and The Matrix comes  to mind. But despite all its flaws, Avatar is worth seeing if only to make one realize that Star Trek (2009) is a much better film.

Although The Nutritional Aspects Of Expanding Populations sounds like a worthy subject for serious study in Biochemistry and Nutrition especially when considering the impact of the large spike in population growth during the post war period and its sociological implications on the  baby boom generation, it became the basis for a landmark 1955 cinematic classic  about the development of a growth serum and how it could be used to solve the problem of overpopulation and world hunger, a neglected subject in the mid fifties.

The elixir depicted in this film adaptation is so potent its promise is in providing the complete nutritional needs of any growing organism, a claim overshadowed only by the myopic scientific experimentation focused solely on animal rather than plant life which could have made it more palatable for vegetarians and provide a sound basis for reducing cardio-vascular disease when coupled by increased exercise and the cessation of smoking.

The film is titled Tarantula and was directed by Jack Arnold and stars John Agar,  Leo J. Carroll and Mara Corday with an uncredited appearance of twenty-five year old Clint Eastwood as a jet pilot dropping napalm at the films’ climax. Arnold went on to direct The Incredible Shrinking Man two years later in 1957 considered by many as his masterpiece and  Eastwood became a multiple Oscar winning director.

In this scenario,  Professor Gerald Deemer  is a scientist with a just motive, a hero trying to avert food shortages which are predicted as a result of the world’s expanding population of two billion in 1955, a role passionately played by veteran character actor Leo J Carroll. This is the premise that sets it apart from most giant bug movies featuring  mutations caused by either nuclear weapons or a demented scientist. In this case its a result of noble intentions gone wrong with a sound display of scientific methodology and  multi layered sub plots such as a budding love story and a rare medical condition known as acromegaly artistically shot in black and white featuring an arid desert with whistling tumbleweeds. It is here Professor Deemer invents a special nutrient on which animals can exclusively thrive causing them to enlarge many times their normal size to serve as a source of food.

Harvested in the professors’ home laboratory are several over-sized rodents and a tarantula that escapes somewhere  in the California, Nevada area, hungry and lurking for prey, growing and yet undetected despite  leaving pools of arachnid venom and skeletal remains whenever it fed.  Why spiders and rodents were used to experiment on instead of cattle or sheep is left unexplained, but  perhaps it  suggests that Deemer thought there may be a time when a high protein diet would be defined by how many legs are on the plate.

Unthinkable imagery created by very sophisticated  visual effects and score, the film has a sharp   witty script written by Robert Fresco and  Martin Berkele based on a story by Ray Bradbury, yet its science fiction basis never diminishes the credibility that advancing bio technology may one day lead to the discovery of such a nutrient with unanticipated consequences.

When a very bored hotel concierge  asks Corday, a 1954 Playboy centerfold who  arrives in town as a biology student working on her Masters dissertation, The Nutritional Aspects Of Expanding Populations and Agar who plays the town doctor, “Well ain’t you going to introduce yourselves?” as they leave the hotel for a ride in his car.

“No” they respond in unison, as the hotel manager scratches his head and  mutters,   “Yep, it can be an awfully fast world.”

Usually, the laws of the universe are defined by some sort of relationship between chaos and order in an identifiable pattern, noticed over a period of time, predictable when and if the ability to co-measure allows for seeing events relative to the actual state of conditions contrary to collective delusion.

The ability to redefine the unknown instilled with focused direction is obvious when a learned lesson encourages a different course then habitual action, however it’s of no value unless understanding the impact is remembered, allowing the acceptance of responsibility, especially when anticipated reactions are as palpable as those that are not, including the ones that result in unexpected pain - a positive way to look at mistakes empowering self-confidence and suggesting the path of wisdom is revealed more as a function of the struggle then it is of the outcome.

If things that occur exist on both a microscopic and macroscopic level, then it is possible to infer the likelihood of events that appear unseen somewhere out there - a nebulous thought - cosmically inspired by the notion that what is too vast or minute to observe is simply an extension of what is.

All bets are off when vision is clouded by haze, fog or a mirage of subjective beliefs difficult to pierce. Hopefully spiral motion is a result of observation, although   distinguishing it from horizontal linear movement depends on the ability to see the larger scheme than the moment that surrounds the present. Perhaps a bird’s eye view will reveal everything as The Point, laying on an arc somewhere part of the circumference of an infinite circle where the dot is the point.

The notion that humans only use approximately 10% of their brain has been perpetuated without any evidence. No one really knows its origin, perhaps a misunderstanding of the words of William James (1842-1910), an American psychologist and philosopher who wrote in his 1908 essay, The Energies Of Men, “We are making use of only a small part of our potential mental and physical resources.” Among his other notable works is, The Subjective Effects Of Nitrous Oxide.

Myths are notoriously difficult to trace, partially because they have multiple sources and are often culturally defined, adding and synthesizing the moral implications at its core, but, assuming it was true, it would mean we could still function if 90% of the brain were removed. A difficult statement for any credible scientist to agree with, and yet so many people still believe we only use a fraction of our brain.

Ask any neurologist and they would probably say, “Neural pathways are difficult to map although removing part of the brain can have devastating effects on behavior,” a meaningless statement to co-notate that science still knows very little about the brain, suggesting we probably have not tapped its true capability assuming that it could be measured scientifically. When was the last time you heard anyone say, “I’ve lived up to my full potential.”

On the other hand, it is difficult to disagree that education affords the opportunity to increase latent ability, it’s still unclear whether that means more brain utilization is involved. Perhaps motivation or some unknown force is at play, although intelligence is known to be more than what is measured by the IQ test. Parents however still proudly beam when their children achieve a high mark. Many still associate increased brain capacity with smartness and imagine super human abilities of memory, telepathy or telekinesis. Whether this is delusion, the work of science fiction or fact yet to be revealed, there is always hope that brain function can be enhanced as evolution proceeds.

One way to increase and train brain skills in the privacy of your own home, aside from reading, is known as The Brain Fitness Kit, a wonderful gift idea for Christmas found on latestbuy.com. “It contains 108 fully illustrated giant puzzle cards designed to test both logical and lateral thinking! Plus it comes complete with a set of instructions and a timer. Play it on your own and beat the clock or compete with a friend and beat them senseless by showing off your grey matter at an affordable $14.95.”

Read more about brain myths at neuroscience for kids (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html)

Disaster films are most engaging when they convey the immediacy of an unexpected catastrophe that is about to happen at the moment its first perceived. No way out and little time to think, absorbed more with the survival struggle of the main characters, usually portrayed by an array of high profile actors unwilling to accept their fate.

The threat, if caused by something from outer space is relegated to science fiction, possible but not probable when scientific evidence to think creatively is obscured by disbelief - a meteor hitting Earth, or a rogue planet out of orbit as portrayed in When Worlds Collide, a 1933 science fiction novel. A story about two planets, one on a collision course with Earth, the other coming close enough to be a haven for survivors if a rocket ship could be built in time to shuttle to the new planet. The continuity of humanity depends on constructing this ark to transport two of every species to a place that may not even have the climate to support Earth’s biodiversity.  A tale filled with uncertainty and biblical drama as portrayed in the 1951 film of the same name. An end of the world scenario inspiring a string of disaster films with a cast of billions and numerous sub plots. The survival of each character depends on luck and the ability to minimize shock, control fear and be able to act quickly while experiencing catastrophic events. But wait, doesn’t this   sound like 2012, the movie?

The fourth cycle of the Mayan Calender culminates at 11:11 am GMT on December 21, 2012 . An anthropological examination of other cultures and their belief systems independently mark this day for some impending change. As the date approaches, prognostications from many sources will become increasingly quoted from the Hopi, I Ching, and Nostradamus to name a few. What will really happen on this date if anything is unclear. Here is where science can speculate on the possibilities of a sudden planetary event such as the reversing of Poles which would cause a ripple in gravity effecting the very atmosphere of Earth.

The basis of Mayan belief is that time is linear and cyclical simultaneously. They looked towards the sky for architectural landmarks which lies at the heart of the structures they built and their cosmological science expressed in surviving records. The sophicated mathematics of its calender are universally recognized for predicting eclipses thousands of years before they occurred. The ancient texts described knowledge of sudden shifts in the climate and references to the dark center of the Galaxy referred to as the cosmic womb identified long before telescopes found evidence for a black hole as the core of The Milky Way.

Many legendary prophecies continue to be credible as long as they remain generic and open to interpretation. Then if something happens it can neatly fit withing the guidelines of what was foretold, but they can also contain ironic twists associated with understanding their meaning in the context of contemporary thought. Some of the great oracles in history such as the one at Delphi went into trances and gave readings in cave dwellings usually connected to fault lines that exposed gases such as ethylene known to have hallucinogenic effects. The one’s that have some basis in science and mathematics, are not as easy to dismiss even after the anointed interval surrounding the date passes because the factors involved that could make the events happen are noticeably present such as global warming and global dimming.

What is agreed upon is that The Sun, Earth and the other planets of the solar system will be at the center of the milky way in an alignment that only happens once in 25,800 years on the winter solastice of 2012. An increase of solar and magnetic energy from the sun is anticipated, but how all this will impact on the crust of Earth, volcanic activity, movement of the oceans and shifting of the continental plates is hard to assess.

Predicting a great change doesn’t necessarily mean annihilation, and all the remaining records of Mayan civilization indicates is that the end of a cycle will occur on that date. The fact that they associate great disaster and upheaval with the transition between one cycle to another is where all the doom and gloom theories are emanating, and yet no one really knows what will occur at 11:11 am GMT on December 21, 2012.

The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will be awarding an honorary Oscar to Roger Corman, the director/producer with a vast array of low budget horror films including The Attack Of The Crab Monsters (1957) and Not Of This Earth (1957). Also among his long list of achievements are loose interpretations of many Edgar Allen Poe’s novella’s as The Pit And The Pendulum (1957) and macabre poems such as The Raven (1963). The films were often over the top and frequently starred the late Vincent Price as the demented protagonist.

So many of Corman’s films are considered B- classics, produced on a low budget, shot in several days and elevating exploitation to an art form that it’s easy to forget the list of distinguished directors and actors who were mentored by him such as Martin Scorsese, Frances Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme , John Sayles,  James Cameron, Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, David Carradine, Peter Fonda, Talia Shire, Dennis Hopper and so many more. These filmmakers got their first break as members of the elite Roger Corman School of Film Making. All genres owe a debt of gratitude to his visionary form of schlock.

One of his most intriguing works and a personal favorite is the prophetic 1960 pre bot-ox tour de force, The Wasp Woman starring Susan Cabot in the title role as Janice Starlin, the owner and CEO of a cosmetic firm at a time when women did not mingle in the business world let alone run corporations. When sales of her beauty products began to slide as her consumer base realizes she is aging, she was motivated to become the chief patron of a scientist who had devised a method to extract enzymes from the royal jelly of the queen wasp that can reverse the aging process. Starlin agrees to fund further research provided she can serve as his human subject. Displeased with the slowness of the results, she breaks into the scientist’s laboratory after hours and injects herself with extra doses of the formula, causing an unanticipated side effect, transforming her into an angry woman with the head and arms of a wasp resulting in quite a buzz,  aggressively killing all the men on the board of trustees of Starlin Enterprises, sacrificing everything for a youthful appearance. A perfect character study for aging actors and actresses obsessed with reversing the effects of time.

Corman’s last directorial achievement for American International Pictures was Gas-s-s-s (1971), also known by the title, It Became Necessary To Destroy The World In Order To Save It. A dark comedy of a post-apocalyptic gas leak at a military installation that kills everyone on Earth over the age of 25. Look closely for the performances of Ben Vereen, Cindy Williams, and a young Talia Shire.

The noted producer/ director was once quoted as saying, “I can make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebrush,” also appeared in minor acting roles in such films as The Silence Of The Lambs, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia and was given the title, “King Of The Bs,” a reference to over 400 films he has been associated with. The bad news is that the Academy has opted not to present any of the honorary awards during the live telecast, but will give them at the governors award dinner on November 14th. The other honorary awards being bestowed are to actress Lauren Bacall and cinematographer Gordon Willis.

For a complete list of Roger Corman’s cinematic achievements follow the Idbm link